Mr. Bently walked up-stairs slowly, dreading to be alone, and shut himself into his room; and, when there, desolation settled upon him. It is not pleasant to be sick in one's own home, with loving and solicitous friends surrounding one with their cares, and taking every task from the weak hands; it is still less pleasant when, though friends are near, they are powerless to lift the burden which only those helpless hands can carry; but how far more miserable, how far more cruel than any other desolation on earth, is it when sickness falls upon one who must work, and the sick one is not only oppressed by the burden of duties unperformed, but is himself a burden, coldly and grudgingly tended, or tended not at all? Mr. Bently knew well the extent of his cousin's friendship, and the worth of her Chinese compliments, and he would far rather have fallen in the street, and been left to the tender mercies of strangers, than fall ill in her house.
Morning came, and it was breakfast-time, by no means an early hour. Mrs. Clay had put off the meal half an hour on her cousin's account. “He has at least one polite habit—he does not rise early,” she said. “But then he is as regular as a clock in his late hour.”
He was not prompt this morning, however, for they waited ten minutes after breakfast was on the table, and rang a second bell, and still their visitor did not appear.
Miss Bird suggested that he had looked unwell the evening before, and might be unable to come down.
“Really, how thoughtful you are!” Mrs. Clay said with cutting emphasis. “I had quite forgotten. Perhaps, my son, you will go up and see if Miss Bird is right.”
“My son” objected to being made a messenger of. “If the old fellar wanted to sleep, let him sleep. Don't you say so, Clem?”
Clementina always agreed with her brother; the two prevailed, and the “old fellar” was left to sleep, or toss and moan, or be consumed with fever and thirst, or otherwise entertain himself as he or fate should choose, while the family breakfasted at their leisure.
It is scarcely worth while to put Clementina and Arthur Clay in print. They are insignificant and, in a small way, disagreeable objects, and their like is often met with to the annoyance of many. The mental ignorance and lack of capacity which we lose sight of when they are overmantled by the loveliness of good-will, in such as these become contemptible by being placed on [pg 631] pedestals of presumption and ill-nature, and hateful when they are set as obstacles and stumbling-blocks in the way of souls who would fain walk and look upward.
Breakfast over, and no Mr. Bently appearing, Mrs. Clay felt called on to make inquiries, and, accordingly, dispatched a servant to her cousin's door, while she herself listened at the foot of the stairs. She heard a knock, but no reply, then a second knock, followed by the servant's voice, as if in answer to some one within.
“Paper under the door, sir? Yes, sir!”