After that Mrs Dale walked home through the garden
by herself. He had studiously told her that that
house in which they lived should be lent, not to her,
but to her children, during his lifetime. He had
positively declined the offer of her warmer regard.
He had made her understand that they were to look
on each other almost as enemies; but that she, enemy
as she was, should still be allowed the use of his
munificence, because he chose to do his duty by his
nieces!
“It will be better for us that we shall leave
it,” she said to herself as she seated herself
in her own arm-chair over the drawing-room fire.
Doctor Crofts Is Called In
Mrs Dale had not sat long in her drawing-room before
tidings were brought to her which for a while drew
her mind away from that question of her removal.
“Mamma,” said Bell, entering the room,
“I really do believe that Jane has got scarlatina.”
Jane, the parlour-maid, had been ailing for the last
two days, but nothing serious had hitherto been suspected.
Mrs Dale instantly jumped up. “Who is with
her?” she asked.
It appeared from Bell’s answer that both she
and Lily had been with the girl, and that Lily was
still in the room. Whereupon Mrs Dale ran upstairs,
and there was on the sudden a commotion in the house.
In an hour or so the village doctor was there, and
he expressed an opinion that the girl’s ailment
was certainly scarlatina. Mrs Dale, not satisfied
with this, sent off a boy to Guestwick for Dr Crofts,
having herself maintained an opposition of many years’
standing against the medical reputation of the apothecary,
and gave a positive order to the two girls not to
visit poor Jane again. She herself had had scarlatina,
and might do as she pleased. Then, too, a nurse
was hired.
All this changed for a few hours the current of Mrs
Dale’s thoughts: but in the evening she
went back to the subject of her morning conversation,
and before the three ladies went to bed, they held
together an open council of war upon the subject.
Dr Crofts had been found to be away from Guestwick,
and word had been sent on his behalf that he would
be over at Allington early on the following morning.
Mrs Dale had almost made up her mind that the malady
of her favourite maid was not scarlatina, but had
not on that account relaxed her order as to the absence
of her daughters from the maid’s bedside.
“Let us go at once,” said Bell, who was
even more opposed to any domination on the part of
her uncle than was her mother. In the discussion
which had been taking place between them the whole
matter of Bernard’s courtship had come upon
the carpet. Bell had kept her cousin’s
offer to herself as long as she had been able to do
so; but since her uncle had pressed the subject upon
Mrs Dale, it was impossible for Bell to remain silent
any longer. “You do not want me to marry
him, mamma; do you?” she had said, when her mother
