The good man does not know what swift antagonism to his pleadings he has suddenly kindled in her. The little foot taps more and more impatiently as he goes on to set forth (as he had so often done) the heinousness of her offences and the weight of her just condemnation. Yet the antagonism did not incline her to open doubt; but after she had said her evening prayer that night, (taught her by the parson,) she drew out her little rosary and kissed reverently the crucifix. It is so much easier at this juncture for her tried and distracted spirit to bolster its faith upon such material symbol than to find repose in any merely intellectual conviction of truth!
Adèle's intimacy with Rose and with her family retained all its old tenderness, but that good fellow Phil was gone. A blithe and merry companion he had been! Adèle missed his kindly attentions more than she would have believed. The Bowriggs have come to Ashfield, but their clamorous friendship is more than ever distasteful to Adèle. Over and over she makes a feint of illness to escape the noisy hilarity. Nor, indeed, is it wholly a feint. Whether it were that her state of moral perturbation and unrest reacted upon the physical system, or that there were other disturbing causes, certain it was that the roses were fading from her cheeks, and that her step was losing day by day something of its old buoyancy. It is even thought best to summon the village doctor to the family council. He is a gossiping, kindly old gentleman, who spends an easy life, free from much mental strain, in trying to make his daily experiences tally with the little fund of medical science which he accumulated thirty years before.
The serene old gentleman feels the pulse, with his head reflectively on one side,—tells his little jokelet about Sir Astley Cooper, or some other worthy of the profession,—shakes his fat sides with a cheery laugh,—"And now, my dear," he says, "let us look at the tongue. Ah, I see, I see,—the stomach lacks tone."
"And there's dreadful lassitude, sometimes, Doctor," speaks up Miss Eliza.
"Ah, I see,—a little exhaustion after a long walk,—isn't it so, Miss Maverick? I see, I see; we must brace up the system, Miss Johns,—brace up the system."
And the kindly old gentleman prescribes his little tonics, of which Adèle takes some, and throws more out of the window.
Adèle does not mend, and the rumor is presently current upon the street that "Miss Adeel is in a decline." The spinster shows a solicitude in the matter which almost touches the heart of the French girl. For Adèle had long before decided that there could be no permanent sympathy between them, and had indulged latterly in no little bitterness of speech toward her. But the acute spinster had forgiven all. Never once had she lost sight of her plan for the ultimate disposal of Adèle and of her father's fortune. Of course the life of Adèle was very dear to her, and the absence of Phil she looked upon as Providential.
Weeks pass by, but still the tonics of the kindly old physician prove of little efficacy. One day the Bowriggs come blustering in, as is their wont.
"Such assurance! Did you ever hear the like? Madame Arles writes us that she is coming to see Ashfield again, and of course coming to us. The air of the town agrees with her, and she hopes to find lodgings."
The eyes of Adèle sparkle with satisfaction,—not so much, perhaps, by reason of her old sympathy with the poor woman, which is now almost forgotten, as because it will give some change at least to the dreary monotony of the town life.