ny time by letter! How
impossible at the moment he was preparing the parents for the alarming,
perhaps fatal illness of their child, to enter on such subjects at all,
much more when the very revelation, at a moment which required all
their energy and promptitude, would only be occasioning at Bath scenes
scarcely less distracting and disastrous than those occurring at Armine.
It was clearly impossible to enter into any details at present; and yet
Glastonbury, while he penned the sorrowful lines, and softened the
sad communication with his sympathy, added a somewhat sly postscript,
wherein he impressed upon Lady Armine the advisability, for various
reasons, that she should only be accompanied by her husband.

CHAPTER X.

_In Which Ferdinand Armine Is Much Concerned_.

THE contingency which Glastonbury feared, surely happened; Miss
Grandison insisted upon immediately rushing to her Ferdinand; and as
the maiden aunt was still an invalid, and was incapable of enduring the
fatigues of a rapid and anxious journey, she was left behind. Within a
few hours of the receipt of Glastonbury's letter, Sir Ratcliffe and
Lady Armine, and their niece, were on their way. They found letters from
Glastonbury in London, which made them travel to Armine even through the
night.

In spite of all his remedies, the brain fever which the physician
foresaw had occurred; and when his family arrived, the life of Ferdinand
was not only in danger but desperate. It was impossible that even the
parents could see their child, and no one was allowed to enter his
chamber but his nurse, the physician, and occasionally Glastonbury; for
this name, with others less familiar to the household, sounded so often
on the frenzied lips of the sufferer, that it was recommended that
Glastonbury should often be at his bedside. Yet he must leave it, to
receive the wretched Sir Ratcliffe and his wife and their disconsolate
companion. Never was so much unhappiness congregated together under one
roof; and yet, perhaps Glastonbury, though the only one who retained
the least command over himself, was, with his sad secret, the most
woe-begone of the tribe.

As for Lady Armine, she sat without the door of her son's chamber the
whole day and night, clasping a crucifix in her hands, and absorbed
in silent prayer. Sir Ratcliffe remained below prostrate. The unhappy
Katherine in vain offered the consolation she herself so needed; and
would have wandered about that Ar