“Did you know of this, Christian?”

“Yes,” she answered, very softly, with a glance, half warning, half entreating, round upon the children.  “But we will not say anything about it I never did, and I had rather not do so now.”

“I understand.  We will speak of it another time?”

But he did not, neither that night, nor for several days and Christian felt only too grateful for his silence.

Sometimes, when, after ringing at intervals of five minutes for some trifling thing, Barker had sent up “Miss Gascoigne’s compliments, and the servants couldn’t be spared to wait up stairs;” or the cook had apologized for deficiencies in Arthur’s dinner by “Miss Gascoigne wanted it for lunch;” and especially when, to her various messages to the nursery, no answer was ever returned—­sometimes it had occurred to Christian—­gentle as she was, and too fully engrossed to notice small things—­that this was not exactly the position Dr. Grey’s wife ought to hold in his—­and her—­own house.  Still she said nothing.  She trusted to time and patience.  And she had such a dread of domestic war—­of a family divided against itself.  Besides, some change must come, for in a day or two she would have to resume her ordinary duties, to take her place at the head of her husband’s table, and once more endure the long mornings, the weary evenings, to meet and pass over the sharp speeches, the unloving looks, which made the continual atmosphere of the Lodge.

“Oh!” she thought to herself, glancing round upon those four walls of the sick-chamber, which had seen, with much of anxiety, much also of love that never failed, and patience that knew no end, “I could almost say with Arthur, ‘It is so nice to be ill!’”

He seemed to think the same for on the day he left it he grumbled dreadfully at being carried in Phillis’s strong arms—­which he had fiercely resisted at first—­to the drawing-room, where he was to hold his second tea-party—­of aunts.

There they sat waiting, Aunt Maria fond and tearful, Aunt Henrietta grim and severe.  And shortly—­nay, before Arthur was well settled on the sofa, and lay pale and silent, still clinging to his step-mother’s hand, the cause of her severity came out.

“Dr. Grey, what have you been doing?  Buying a new piano?”

Yes, there it was, a beautiful Erard; and Dr. Grey stood and smiled at it with an almost childish delight, as if he had done something exceedingly clever, which he certainly had.

“To buy a new piano—­without consulting me!  I never heard of such a thing.  Mrs. Grey, this is your doing!”

“She never saw it before, or knew I meant to buy it; but, now it is bought, I hope she will like it.  Try it, Christian.”

His wife was deeply touched, so much so that she almost felt sorry for Aunt Henrietta, she would have given much to bring a little brightness, a little kindness, into that worn, restless, unhappy face, true reflection of the nature which itself created its own unhappiness, as well as that of all connected with it.  She said, almost humbly,