“And do you mean that you are going to take her liabilities upon yourself?”
“Nonsense, John; you are laughing at me; it isn’t kind. I had not finished my sentence. She is overwhelmed with letter-debts, poor thing; and I promised to go and help her with her correspondence. You know we are told in the Bible to ‘bear one another’s burdens.’”
“True, my dearest wife; but the same high authority, if I remember rightly, bids us do our own business first. But what has entailed such an enormous amount of correspondence on Miss Danvers?”
“Only her anxiety to do good. She is secretary to some half-dozen ladies’ societies for meeting all sorts of wants and troubles.—Ah! I see that cruel smile again on your face; but positively you must not laugh at me nor her. I am sure she is one of the noblest women I know.”
“I won’t question it for a moment, but I wish she could contrive to keep her benevolence within such reasonable limits as would allow her to transact her own business without taxing her friends. Anything more on Tuesday?”
“Nothing more, dearest, on Tuesday, away from home; but of course you know that I have to work hard at my essay, my music, my drawing, and my little poem. I see you shrug your shoulders, but you must not be hard upon me. Why was I taught all these things if I am to make no use of them?”
“Why, indeed?” were the words which rose to the doctor’s lips, but he did not utter them. He only smiled sadly, and asked, “What of Wednesday?”
“There, John, perhaps you had better look for yourself,” she said, rather piqued at his manner, and taking a little card from her pocket-book, she handed it to him.
Pressing her left hand lovingly in his own, he took the card from her, and read:—
“‘Engagements. Wednesday, 11 a.m. Meet the professor at Mrs Maskelyne’s.’—Mrs Maskelyne! That’s your strong-minded friend who goes in for muscular Christianity and vivisection! I’m very glad we don’t keep a pet terrier or spaniel!”—“Ah, John, you may laugh, but she’s a wonderful woman!”—“‘Wonderful!’ perhaps so, dear Agnes,—an ‘awful’ woman, I should say; that’s only a term expressive of a different kind of admiration.—‘Concert in the evening.’