"What! when that man gets I don't know how many guineas from mamma every time he comes, do you think that it is for his interest that I should get well?"
"My dear Fred," interposed his sister, "you are exciting yourself, and that is so very bad for you."
"I do assure you, Henrietta, you would find it very little exciting to be shut up in this room with half a teaspoonful of wishy-washy pudding twice a day, and all just to fill Philip Carey's pockets! Now, there was old Clarke at Rocksand, he had some feeling for one, poor old fellow; but this man, not the slightest compunction has he; and I am ready to kick him out of the room when I hear that silky voice of his trying to be gen-tee-eel, and condoling; and those boots-O! Busy Bee! those boots! whenever he makes a step I always hear them say, 'O what a pretty fellow I am!'"
"You seem to be very merry here, my dears," said Aunt Mary, coming in; "but I am afraid you will tire yourself, Freddy; I heard your voice even before I opened the door."
Fred was silent, a little ashamed, for he had sense enough not absolutely to believe all that he had been saying, and his mother, sitting down, began to talk to the visitor, "Well, my little Queen, we have seen very little of you of late, but we shall be very sorry to lose you. I suppose your mamma will have all your letters, and Henrietta must not expect any, but we shall want very much to know how you get on with Aunt Susan and her little dog."
"O very well, I dare say," said Beatrice, rather absently, for she was looking at her aunt's delicate fragile form, and thinking of what her father had been saying.
"And Queenie," continued her aunt, earnestly, "you must take great care of your papa-make him rest, and listen to your music, and read story-books instead of going back to his work all the evening."
"To be sure I shall, Aunt Mary, as much as I possibly can."
"But Bee," said Fred, "you don't mean that you are going to be shut up with that horrid Lady Susan all this time? Why don't you stay here, and let her take care of herself?"
"Mamma would not like that; and besides, to do her justice, she is really ill, Fred," said Beatrice.
"It is too bad, now I am just getting better-if they would let me, I mean," said Fred: "just when I could enjoy having you, and now there you go off to that old woman. It is a downright shame."
"So it is, Fred," said Queen Bee gaily, but not coquettishly, as once she would have answered him, "a great shame in you not to have learned to feel for other people, now you know what it is to be ill yourself."
"That is right, Bee," said Aunt Mary, smiling; "tell him he ought to be ashamed of having monopolized you all so long, and spoilt all the comfort of your household. I am sure I am," added she, her eyes filling with tears, as she affectionately patted Beatrice's hand.
Queen Bee's heart was very full, but she knew that to give way to the expression of her feelings would be hurtful to Fred, and she only pressed her aunt's long thin fingers very earnestly, and turned her face to the fire, while she struggled down the rising emotion. There was a little silence, and when they began to talk again, it was of the en- gravings at which Fred had just been looking. The visit lasted till the dressing bell rang, when Beatrice was obliged to go, and she shook hands with Fred, saying cheerfully, "Well, good-bye, I hope you will be better friends with the doctors next time I see you."
"Never will I like one inch of a doctor, never!" repeated Fred, as she left the room, and ran to snatch what moments she could with her mamma in the space allowed for dressing.
Grandmamma was happy that evening, for, except poor Frederick's own place, there were no melancholy gaps at the dinner-table. He had Bennet to sit with him, and besides, there was within call the confidential old man-servant, who had lived so many years at Rocksand, and in whom both Fred and his mother placed considerable dependence.
Everything looked like recovery; Mrs. Frederick Langford came down and talked and smiled like her own sweet self; Mrs. Geoffrey Langford was ready to hear all the news, old Mr. Langford was quite in spirits again, Henrietta was bright and lively. The thought of long days in London with Lady Susan, and of long evenings with no mamma, and with papa either writing or at his chambers, began from force of contrast to seem doubly like banishment to poor little Queen Bee, but whatever faults she had, she was no repiner. "I deserve it," said she to herself, "and surely I ought to bear my share of the trouble my wilfulness has occasioned. Besides, with even one little bit of papa's company I am only too well off."
So she smiled, and answered grandpapa in her favourite style, so that no one would have guessed from her demeanour that a task had been imposed upon her which she so much disliked, and in truth her thoughts were much more on others than on herself. She saw all hopeful and happy about Fred, and as to her aunt, when she saw her as usual with all her playful gentleness, she could not think that there was anything seriously amiss with her, or if there was, mamma would find out and set it all to rights. Then how soothing and comforting, now that the first acute pain of remorse was over, was that affectionate kindness, which, in every little gesture and word, Aunt Mary had redoubled to her ever since the accident.
Fred was all this time lying on his sofa, very glad to rest after so much talking: weak, dizzy, and languid, and throwing all the blame of his uncomfortable sensations on Philip Carey and the starvation system, but still, perhaps, not without thoughts of a less discontented nature, for when Mr. Geoffrey Langford came to help him to bed, he said, as he watched the various arrangements his uncle was for the last time sedulously making for his comfort, "Uncle Geoffrey, I ought to thank you very much; I am afraid I have been a great plague to you."
Perhaps Fred did not say this in all sincerity, for any one but Uncle Geoffrey would have completely disowned the plaguing, and he fully expected him to do so; but his uncle had a stern regard for truth, coupled with a courtesy which left it no more harshness than was salutary.
"Anything for your good, my dear sir," said he, with a smile. "You are welcome to plague me as much as you like, only remember that your mamma is not quite so tough."
"Well, I do try to be considerate about her," said Fred. "I mean to make her rest as much as possible; Henrietta and I have been settling how to save her."
"You could save her more than all, Fred, if you would spare her discussions."
Fred held his tongue, for though his memory was rather cloudy about the early part of his illness, he did remember having seen her look greatly harassed one day lately when he had been arguing against Philip Carey.
Uncle Geoffrey proceeded to gather up some of the outlines which Henrietta had left on the sofa. "I like those very much," said Fred, "especially the Fight with the Dragon."
"You know Schiller's poem on it?" said Uncle Geoffrey.
"Yes, Henrietta has it in German."
"Well, it is what I should especially recommend to your consideration."
"I am afraid it will be long enough before I am able to go out on a dragon-killing expedition," said Fred, with a weary helpless sigh.
"Fight the dragon at home, then, Freddy. Now is the time for-
'The duty hardest to fulfil,
To learn to yield our own self-will.'"
"There is very little hasty pudding in the case," said Fred, rather disconsolately, and at the same time rather drolly, and with a sort of resolution of this kind, "I will try then, I will not bother mamma, let that Carey serve me as he may. I will not make a fuss, if I can help it, unless he is very unreasonable indeed, and when I get well I will submit to be coddled in an exemplary manner; I only wonder when I shall feel up to anything again! O! what a nuisance it is to have this swimming head and aching knees, all by the fault of that Carey!"
Uncle Geoffrey said no more, for he thought a hint often was more useful than a lecture, even if Fred had been in a state for the latter, and besides he was in greater request than ever on this last evening, so much so that it seemed as if no one was going to spare him even to have half an hour's talk with his wife. He did find the time for this at last, however, and his first question was, "What do you think of the little Bee?"