MISS HAMILTON’S LITTLE SCHOLAR
Miss Darrell’s innuendoes were not to be borne
with any degree of patience. Mr. Hamilton’s
opinion might be nothing to me,—how often
I repeated that!—but all the same I owed
it to my dignity to seek an explanation with him.
The opportunity came the very next day.
He called to speak to me about a new patient, a little
cripple boy who had broken his arm; the father was
a labourer, and there were ten children, and the mother
took in washing. ’Poor Robin has not much
chance of good nursing,’ he went on; ’Mrs.
Bell is not a bad mother, as mothers go, but she is
overworked and overburdened; she has a good bit of
difficulty in keeping her husband out of the alehouse.
Good heavens! what lives these women lead! it is to
be hoped that it will be made up to them in another
world: no washing-tubs and ale-houses there, no
bruised bodies and souls, eh, Miss Garston?’
Mr. Hamilton was talking in his usual fashion; he
had taken the arm-chair I had offered him, and seemed
in no hurry to leave it, although his dinner-hour
was approaching. When he had given me full directions
about Robin, and I had promised to go to him directly
after my breakfast the next morning, I said to him
in quite a careless manner that I hoped Miss Hamilton
was well and had sustained no ill effects from her
visit to me.
’Oh no: she is better than usual.
I think you roused her and did her good. Gladys
mopes too much at home. All the same,’ in
a tolerant tone, ’you ought not to have kept
her so late; as Etta very wisely remarked, it was
no good for her to stay in on Sundays and remain out
a couple of hours later another night; you see, Gladys
takes cold so easily.’
’I hear you were very much inclined to blame
the village nurse, Mr. Hamilton.’
‘Who?—I?’ looking at me in
a little surprise. ’I do not remember that
I said anything very dreadful. Etta was in a
fuss, as usual; you managing women like to make a
fuss sometimes: she sent off Leah, and wanted
me to lecture Gladys for her imprudence; but I was
not inclined to be bothered, and said it was Gladys’s
affair if she chose to make herself ill, but all the
same she ought to be ashamed of such skittishness at
her age. I don’t believe Gladys knew I
was joking; that is the worst of her, she never sees
a joke; Etta does, though, for she burst out laughing
when my lady walked off to bed in rather a dignified
manner. I hope you are not easily offended too,
Miss Garston?’
‘Oh dear, no,’ I returned coolly, ’only
I should be sorry if you had in any way changed your
opinion of my steadiness. Miss Darrell hinted
that you were vexed with me for keeping your sister,
and thought that I was to blame.’
Mr. Hamilton looked so bewildered at this that I exonerated
him from that moment.
