all the
family.

He met Amabel with a smile that showed both were determined. He
undertook to announce the plan to his mother, and she said she would
write to tell Mr. Markham that as far as could be reckoned on two such
frail people, they would be at Redclyffe the next evening, and he must
use his own discretion about giving Mr. Morville the note which she
enclosed.

Dr. Mayerne came in time for breakfast, and the letter from Markham was
at once given to him.

'A baddish state of things, eh, doctor!' said Charles. 'Well, what do
you think this lady proposes? To set off forthwith, both of us, to take
charge of him. What do you think of that, Dr. Mayerne?'

'I should say it was the only chance for him,' said the doctor, looking
only at the latter. 'Spirits and health reacting on each other, I see
it plain enough. Over-worked in parliament, doing nothing in moderation,
going down to that gloomy old place, dreaming away by himself, going
just the right way to work himself into another attack on the brain, and
then he is done for. I don't know that you could do a wiser thing than
go to him, for he is no more fit to tell what is good for him than a
child.' So spoke the doctor, thinking only of the patient till looking
up at the pair he was dismissing to such a charge, the helpless,
crippled Charles, unable to cross the room without crutches, and Amabel,
her delicate face and fragile figure in her widow's mourning, looking
like a thing to be pitied and nursed with the tenderest care, with that
young child, too, he broke off and said--'But you don't mean you are in
earnest?'

'Never more so in our lives,' said Charles; on which Dr. Mayerne looked
so wonderingly and inquiringly at Amabel, that she answered,--

'Yes that we are, if you think it safe for Charles and baby.'

'Is there no one else to go? What's become of his sister?'

'That would never do,' said Charles, 'that is not the question;' and he
detailed their plan.

'Well, I don't see why it should not succeed,' said the doctor, 'or how
you can any of you damage yourselves.'

'And baby?' said Amy.

'What should happen to her, do you think?' said the doctor with
his kind, reassuring roughness. 'Unless you leave her behind in the
carriage, I don't see what harm she could come to, and even then, if
you direct her properly, she will come safe to hand.' Amabel smiled, and
saying she would fetch her to be inspected, ran up-stairs with the light
nimble step of f