"I certainly shall not tell you anything of the kind," said the doctor with a reassuring smile, "for it wouldn't be true; but who is the relative who had epilepsy?"
"Oh, a nephew of my husband, and he had a dreadful fall. He fell out of a second-story window: it was in the country, and rather a low house, but it finished him, poor fellow! Oh, doctor, sit down: I am tired to death, and this news has so upset me! Will you assure me, upon your honor, that my child will never have epilepsy?"
"Sincerely, Mrs. Pinckney, I don't think there is the least danger; but you must be careful as to what he eats. Nuts and raisins are not a particularly wholesome diet for a child three years old."
She looked about inquiringly, and did not seem the least surprised as her eye fell on Miss Featherstone.
The tutor, still irate from his alarm, exclaimed, "You take la bonne, madame. I am occupy with mes élèves: then I am not in his care."
Mrs. Pinckney, who was not an irritable woman, took no notice of this implied reproach: "What is to be done with him to-night, Doctor Harris? Can you sleep here?" As he shook his head, "You'll come the first thing in the morning? Oh, doctor, can I go to bed and sleep comfortably? Do you assure me that there is not the slightest danger of a recurrence of those dreadful spasms?"
When the distressed mother spoke of sleeping comfortably a smile, which all his admiration for the fair widow could not restrain, flickered over Doctor Harris's face: "I was about to give this young lady"—and he turned to Miss Featherstone—"directions for the night, as we didn't expect you home: she has been very kind and efficient, and was going to take care of the child; but now—"
He was interrupted by Mrs. Pinckney crossing the room, seizing Miss
Featherstone's hand and kissing her with effusion: "My dear Miss
Featherstone—your name is Featherstone, is it not?—I have no words to
thank you sufficiently."
"Oh, the chère mees!" burst forth the little Frenchman. "I was so full of frighten I not know what to do, which way to turn myself; and she, so calm, so smooth," he said, hesitating for a word, and apparently discomfited when he found it—"she take the helm, she issue the orders: every one obey, and the child is saved." After this peroration he glanced around as if for applause.
"I was about to say," resumed Doctor Harris, "that, now that the nurse has returned, Miss Featherstone, who has been travelling all day, had better have some dinner and be sent to bed."