s niece) has a special temper of its own. Without
exhibiting the smallest irritation, Sir Patrick dextrously applied his
sister-in-law's blister to his sister-in-law herself.

"What an eye you have!" he said. "I was impatient. I _am_ impatient. I
am dying to know what Blanche said to you when she got better?"

The British Matron froze up into a matron of stone on the spot.

"Nothing!" answered her ladyship, with a vicious snap of her teeth, as
if she had tried to bite the word before it escaped her.

"Nothing!" exclaimed Sir Patrick.

"Nothing," repeated Lady Lundie, with her most formidable emphasis of
look and tone. "I applied all the remedies with my own hands; I cut her
laces with my own scissors, I completely wetted her head through with
cold water; I remained with her until she was quite exhausted--I took
her in my arms, and folded her to my bosom; I sent every body out of the
room; I said, 'Dear child, confide in me.' And how were my advances--my
motherly advances--met? I have already told you. By heartless secrecy.
By undutiful silence."

Sir Patrick pressed the blister a little closer to the skin. "She was
probably afraid to speak," he said.

"Afraid? Oh!" cried Lady Lundie, distrusting the evidence of her own
senses. "You can't have said that? I have evidently misapprehended you.
You didn't really say, afraid?"

"I said she was probably afraid--"

"Stop! I can't be told to my face that I have failed to do my duty by
Blanche. No, Sir Patrick! I can bear a great deal; but I can't bear
that. After having been more than a mother to your dear brother's child;
after having been an elder sister to Blanche; after having toiled--I say
_toiled,_ Sir Patrick!--to cultivate her intelligence (with the sweet
lines of the poet ever present to my memory: 'Delightful task to rear
the tender mind, and teach the young idea how to shoot!'); after having
done all I have done--a place in the carriage only yesterday, and a
visit to the most interesting relic of feudal times in Perthshire--after
having sacrificed all I have sacrificed, to be told that I have behaved
in such a manner to Blanche as to frighten her when I ask her to confide
in me, is a little too cruel. I have a sensitive--an unduly sensitive
nature, dear Sir Patrick. Forgive me for wincing when I am wounded.
Forgive me for feeling it when the wound is dealt me by a person whom I
revere."

Her ladyship put her handkerchief to her eyes. Any other man would hav