t she can cook. Pray what are we to do for dinner?"

"I am sure I don't know. I never knew anything so unlucky as it all is,
and Lucinda looking so ill."

"Well, you had better send for the doctor."

"She won't hear of it. She says nobody could do her any good but
Cecilia."

"What! 'Send for Mrs. de Noel?' Poor Cissy! What do these excited
females imagine she is going to do?"

"I don't know, but I do wish we could get her here."

"But she is in London, is she not, with Aunt Henrietta?"

"Yes, and only comes home to-day."

"Well, I will tell you what we might do if you want her badly. Telegraph
to her to London and ask her to come straight on here."

"I suppose she is sure to come?"

"Like a shot, if you say we are all ill."

"No, that would frighten her. I will just say we want her particularly."

"Yes, and say the carriage shall meet the 5.15 at Whitford station, and
then she will feel bound to come. And as I shall not be back in time,
send Lindy to meet her. It will do him good. He looks as if he had been
sitting up all night with the ghost."

It was a melancholy day. The wind was quieter, but the rain still fell.
Indoors we were all in low spirits, not even excepting the little boys,
much concerned about Tip, who was not his usual brisk and complacent
self. His nose was hot, his little stump of a tail was limp, he hid
himself under chairs and tables, whence he turned upon us sorrowful and
beseeching eyes, and, most alarming symptom of all, refused sweet
biscuits. During the afternoon he was confided to me by his little
masters while they made an expedition to the stables, and I was sitting
reading by the library fire with the invalid beside me when Lady
Atherley came in to propose I should go into the drawing-room and talk
to Mrs. Molyneux, who had just come down.

"Did she ask to see me?"

"No; but when I proposed your going in, she did not say no."

I did as I was asked to do, but with some misgivings. It was one of the
few occasions when my misfortune became an advantage. No one, especially
no woman, was likely to rebuff too sharply the intruder who dragged
himself into her presence. So far from that, Mrs. Molyneux, who was
leaning against the mantelpiece and looking down listlessly into the
fire, moved to welcome me with a smile and to offer me a hand
startlingly cold. But after that she resumed her first attitude and made
no attempt to converse--she, the most ready, the most voluble of women.