e was a
big, fat, odd sort of elderly man, who kept birds and white mice, and
spoke to them as if they were so many Christian children. He seemed
terribly cut up by what had happened. "Ah! poor Lady Glyde! poor dear
Lady Glyde!" he says, and went stalking about, wringing his fat hands
more like a play-actor than a gentleman. For one question my mistress
asked the doctor about the lady's chances of getting round, he asked a
good fifty at least. I declare he quite tormented us all, and when he
was quiet at last, out he went into the bit of back garden, picking
trumpery little nosegays, and asking me to take them upstairs and make
the sick-room look pretty with them. As if THAT did any good. I think
he must have been, at times, a little soft in his head. But he was not
a bad master--he had a monstrous civil tongue of his own, and a jolly,
easy, coaxing way with him. I liked him a deal better than my
mistress. She was a hard one, if ever there was a hard one yet.

Towards night-time the lady roused up a little. She had been so
wearied out, before that, by the convulsions, that she never stirred
hand or foot, or spoke a word to anybody. She moved in the bed now,
and stared about her at the room and us in it. She must have been a
nice-looking lady when well, with light hair, and blue eyes and all
that. Her rest was troubled at night--at least so I heard from my
mistress, who sat up alone with her. I only went in once before going
to bed to see if I could be of any use, and then she was talking to
herself in a confused, rambling manner. She seemed to want sadly to
speak to somebody who was absent from her somewhere. I couldn't catch
the name the first time, and the second time master knocked at the
door, with his regular mouthful of questions, and another of his
trumpery nosegays.

When I went in early the next morning, the lady was clean worn out
again, and lay in a kind of faint sleep. Mr. Goodricke brought his
partner, Mr. Garth, with him to advise. They said she must not be
disturbed out of her rest on any account. They asked my mistress many
questions, at the other end of the room, about what the lady's health
had been in past times, and who had attended her, and whether she had
ever suffered much and long together under distress of mind. I
remember my mistress said "Yes" to that last question. And Mr.
Goodricke looked at Mr. Garth, and shook his head; and Mr. Garth looked
at Mr. Goodricke, and shook