"Out, cynic!" cried his sister; "I will never see things on a rainy day when I can see them on a fine one; and now, tell me, whither are you going to whirl me at this violent rate? What particular spot of the earth's surface is the ultimate object of this journey, my lord? Or are we to go on rolling forever?"
"Why, I think, my dear sister," replied Beauchamp, musing; "I think it is not unlikely to end in Sicily--I have some reason to imagine--"
"Goodness!" exclaimed Miss Beauchamp, interrupting him, "that must surely be an English woman in the widow's dress."
"Hai, postillion! Arrettez! Arrettez donc!" was all the young earl's reply to his sister's observation; and the next moment, much to her surprise, he was out of the carriage, and speaking kindly to the woman whom she had noticed, and who had turned round to take a casual glance of the two gay carriages that came dashing up into the little quiet town of Poligny.
"Indeed! Is he so ill!" said Beauchamp, gravely, as he listened to widow Harrison's account of the journey she had lately taken, and her son's present situation. "I sill really sorry to hear it--but you can not have good medical advice here. It would be much better to get him on to Geneva."
"Oh, but indeed we have very good advice, sir!" answered the widow. "There is good Dr. Arnoux here, who was in England in the time of the war--an emigrant--and lodged for three years in our house in Emberton, before our misfortunes. I have just been getting Walter's medicines while he is asleep."
"Well, Mrs. Harrison," replied Beauchamp, whose natural kindness of heart was not to be mastered even by impatience. "I will stay here at the inn to-day; and whenever you think that your son is likely to be awake, I will come down and see him. But you must point me out the house."
The poor woman replied that the young sailor was generally more drowsy in the morning, and seemed much better and more lively in the evening; and, with many unobtrusive but heartfelt thanks she described to Beauchamp the way to her dwelling.
"Well, then, I will come down in the evening," answered Beauchamp, "and we will see whether we can not devise some plan that may improve his health."
With this promise, he returned to the carriage; and, while it drove on to the auberge, satisfied his sister's curiosity in regard to the poor widow. "So now, Maria," he said, "you will have the day's rest you have been sighing for so long."