“Not more to me than to my cousin,” answered Lilly, promptly. “He got the eatables from Mrs Gammage, and carried them to the encampment. I should have been afraid of going alone.”
The doctor did not repeat a version of the story which he had heard from Arnold, but he replied, “I am truly glad to hear that Mr Ralph busies himself about the welfare of his fellow-creatures.”
Mr and Mrs Clavering looked surprised; the words struck strangely on their ears. They were so different to what they were accustomed to hear. Mrs Clavering had been inclined to complain of her son and niece having visited the gipsies for fear they might catch a fever from them or get robbed, and now she heard them praised by Dr Morison, for whose opinion she had great respect; so she said nothing. Every day after this Lilly and Ralph paid a visit to the encampment, taking not only food but some blankets, with some of which Mrs Gammage had supplied them. Others had actually been bought by Ralph, at his cousin’s instigation, with his own money. There could be no doubt from the way they expressed themselves, that the gipsies really were grateful for the kindness shown them, so different from the treatment they had been accustomed to receive from the world. Their hand was supposed to be against every man, and every man’s hand was undoubtedly against them.
At length the whole family had so completely recovered, that Arnold told them that he should leave the neighbourhood. “The gentlefolks don’t like our ways, and we should be sorry, after what you have done for us, if we came foul of any of your people,” said the gipsy.
“So should we, indeed,” answered Lilly. “And I hope you will not do anything elsewhere to get yourselves into trouble.”
“No fear, sweet lady,” said Arnold, with the courtesy so often found among his people. “The thought that you would be offended would prevent us.”
Chapter Five.
The days flew by; the spring returned; Ralph completely recovered his strength, and renewed his daily visits to his tutor; while Lilly, unaided, pursued her own studies with unwavering steadiness, and employed herself in calling, with her aunt, on some of the surrounding families of their own rank, in riding, sketching, in visiting the poor in the neighbourhood, and in doing good to all around as far as she had the power. Doctor Morison called her his bright intelligence, and said that he considered her a ministering angel, sent into their district to awaken these people from the Boetian lethargy into which they had sunk. Lilly, however, did not hear these compliments. Had she, her reply would have been that she was only doing what she knew to be right.