“What should we give for our beloved?”

—E. B. Browning.

No sooner had the visitors departed than the others now out of quarantine appeared at Vale Leston. Angela was anxious to spend a little time there, and likewise to have Lena overhauled by Tom May. The child had never really recovered, and was always weakly; and whereas on the journey, Lily, now in high health, was delighted with all she saw, though she could not compare Penbeacon to Adam’s Peak, Lena lay back in Sister Angela’s arms, almost a dead weight, hardly enduring the bustle of the train, though she tried not to whine, as long as she saw her pink Ben looking happy in his cage.

Angela was an experienced nurse, and was alarmed at some of the symptoms that others made light of. Mrs. Grinstead had thought things might be made easier to her if the Miss Merrifields came to meet her and hear the doctor’s opinion; and Elizabeth accepted her invitation, arriving to see the lovely peaceful world in the sweet blossoming of an early May, the hedges spangled with primroses, and the hawthorns showing sheets of snow; while the pear trees lifted their snowy pyramids, and Lily in her white frock darted about the lawn in joyous play with her father under the tree, and the grey cloister was gay with wisteria.

Angela was sitting in the boat, safely moored, with a book in her hand, the pink cockatoo on the gunwale, nibbling at a stick, and the girl lying on a rug, partly on her lap. Phyllis and Anna, who had come out on the lawn, made Elizabeth pause.

“That’s the way they go on!” said Phyllis. “All day long Angela is reading to the child either the ‘Water Babies’ or the history of Joseph.”

“Or crooning to her the story of the Cross,” said Anna; “and as soon as one is ended she begins it again, and Lena will not let her miss or alter a single word.”

“They go on more than half the night,” added Phyllis. “Bear sat up long over his letters and accounts, and as he went up he heard the crooning, and looked in; and the very moment Angela paused, there came the little plaintive voice, ‘Go on, please.’ ‘Women are following’—”

“But is not that spoiling her?” asked Bessie.

A look of sad meaning passed between her two companions. Phyllis shook her head slightly, and, instead of answering, conducted Bessie on to the bank, when Angela looked up and made a sign that she could not move or speak, for the child was asleep. The yellow head was shaded by Angela’s parasol, the thin hair lying ruffled on the black dress, and the small face looked more pinched than when the aunt had last seen it, nearly a year previously. She had watched the decay of aged folks, but she was unused to the illnesses of children; and she recoiled with a little shock, as she looked down at the little wasted face, with a slight flush of sleep. “Recovery from measles,” she said.

Phyllis smiled a little pitifully as her own little girl, all radiant with health and joy, came skipping up, performing antics over her father’s hand. “Take care, Lily, don’t wake poor little Lena,” was murmured quietly.

“Northern breezes—” began Bessie, but the voices had broken the light slumber; and as Angela began, “See, Lena, here is Aunt Bessie,” the effect was to make her throw herself over Angela’s shoulder and hide her face; and when her protector tried to turn her round and reason her into courtesy, she began to cry in a feeble manner.

“She has had a bad night,” said motherly Phyllis; “let her alone.”

“May not I get down into the boat?” asked Lily. “I’ll be very good.”

There would have been a little hesitation, but at the voice Lena looked up and called “Lily, Lily!” Bernard lifted his small daughter down, Elizabeth was not sorry to be led away for the present, and when, after a turn in the rose garden, she came back, the two children were sitting with arms round one another, holding a conversation with Ben, the cockatoo, and making him dance on one of the benches of the boat, under Angela’s supervision, lest he should end by dancing overboard. The rich fair hair, shining dark blue eyes, and plump glowing cheeks of Lily were a contrast to the wan wasted colouring of her little cousin; but Lena was more herself now than when just awake, and let Lily lead her up and introduce her, as it might be called, to Cousin Bessie as Lily called her, a less formidable sound than “Aunt Elizabeth.” They were both kissed, and she endured it. Angela was, as her brothers and sisters said, “very good,” and scrupulously abstained from absorbing the child all the evening, letting Elizabeth show her pictures and tell her stories, to which, by Lily’s example, she listened quietly enough and with interest.

When the two children went off, hand in hand, to their beds, Elizabeth said, “Really, Magdalen is improved. If you leave Lily with her, Phyllis, I think we should get on beautifully. The bracing air will do wonders for them both.”

“Thank you,” said poor Phyllis forbearingly; “we have not made our plans about Lily yet.”

But Elizabeth thought out a beautiful scheme of discipline and study in the long light hours of the morning, and began to feel herself drawn towards her delicate little niece, feeling sure that the little thing would soon be Susan’s darling, if Susan could be brought to endure the cockatoo walking loose about the house.

Early in the day Professor May appeared, and was hailed as an old friend by all the Underwoods. He rejoiced to see Clement looking well and active; and “as to this fellow,” he said, looking at Bernard, “it shows what development will do.”

“Not quite the young Bear of Stoneborough,” said Clement, leaning affectionately on his broad shoulder; “our skittish pair are grown very sober-minded. But you have not told us of your father.”

“My father is very well. He walks down every day to sit with my wife, and visits a selection of his old patients, who are getting few enough now. This is not my patient, I suppose?”

“Unless you are ready to prescribe only laughing and good Jersey cows’ milk,” said Bernard, pulling the long silky brown hair. “Where’s mother, little one?”

“Mother sent me to say Aunt Angel is ready, if Dr. May will come up to Aunt Cherry’s room. Lena is frightened, and they did not like to leave her.”

It was a long visit, after Phyllis had come down; and, walking up and down the cloister with Bessie Merrifield, listened to her schemes of education for the little maidens. Lily she liked and admired, and she was convinced that Magdalen’s weak health and spirits were the result of the spoiling system. Phyllis trembled a little as she heard of the knocking about, out-of-doors ways that had certainly produced fine strong healthy frames and upright characters, but she forbore to say that if her little girl had to be left, it would be to her mother and Mysie.

By and by Tom came down, and finding Geraldine alone in the drawing-room, he answered her inquiry with a very grave look. “Poor little thing! You do not think well of her! Is it as Angel feared?”

“Confirmed disease, from original want of development of heart. Measles accelerated it. I doubt her lasting six months, though it may be longer or less.”

“Have you told Angel?”

“She knew it, more or less. She is ready to bear it, though one can see how her soul is wrapped up in the child, and the child in her.”

“One thing, Tom, will you tell Miss Merrifield yourself, and alone, and make her feel that it is an independent opinion? It may save both the poor child and Angel a great deal.”

“Are you prepared to keep her here?”

“Of course we are. It is Angel’s natural home. Clement and I could think of nothing else.”

“I knew you would say so. If I understand rightly there is something like a jealousy of her case in the Merrifields, prompted greatly by their wish to expiate any neglect of her father.”

“That is what I gather from what Phyllis tells me.”

“What a lovely countenance hers is in expression! No wonder Bernard has softened down. There is strength and solidity as well as sweetness in her face. Ah, there they are!”

“I will call Phyllis in. Bessie Merrifield has almost walked her to death by this time.”

So Phyllis was called and told. What she said was, “I only hope he will make her understand that it could not be helped, and it was not Angela’s fault.”

Tom May had wisdom enough to make this clear in what was a greater shock to Elizabeth than it was to Angela, who had suspected enough to be prepared for the sentence, and had besides a good deal of hospital experience, which enabled her thoroughly to understand the Professor’s explanations. So, indeed, did it seem to Elizabeth at the time he was speaking; but she had lived a good deal in London, and had a great idea that a London physician must be superior to a man who had lived in the country, and, moreover, whom all the household called Tom, and she asked Mrs. Grinstead if he were really so clever.

“Indeed, I think he is; and I have seen a great deal of his treatment. You may quite trust him. He lives down here at Stoneborough for his father’s sake, or he would be quite at the head of his profession.”

“Superior to the two Doctors Brownlow?”

“I should not say superior, but quite equal.”

“The Brownlows,” said Clement, looking up from his paper, “helped me through an ordinary malarial fever. John Lucas is a brilliant specialist in such cases, but certifying an affection of the heart. Tom May latterly has treated me better. As far as I understand the case of your little niece, I should say both that it was more in the line of Tom May, and likewise that it would be very hurtful to her to take her about and subject her to more examinations.”

“Poor little thing! no doubt it would be a terrible distress,” acquiesced Bessie; “but still, if it is bracing that she needs—northern air might make all the difference.”

Clement sighed a little hopelessly over making a woman understand or give way, and returned to his newspaper; while Geraldine tried to argue that air could not make much difference, speaking in the interest of the child herself and of her sister. Elizabeth listened and agreed; but there was in the Merrifield family a fervour of almost jealous expiation of their neglect of Henry, inattention to his daughter, and desire to appropriate her, and to restore her to health, strength, and wisdom, in spite of her would-be stepmother.

“They hate me as much as if I were her stepmother!” cried Angela. “I wish I was, to have a right to protect her! No, Clem; I’ll not break out, if I can help it, as long as they don’t worry her; and I think Bessie does see the rights of it.”

Yes; the peaceful, thoughtful atmosphere of Vale Leston, unlike the active bustle of Coalham, had an insensible influence on Elizabeth’s mind; and she saw that Angela’s treatment of the child, always cheerful though tender, was right, and that it would be sheer cruelty to separate them. She promised to use all her power to prevent any such step, and finally left Vale Leston, perfectly satisfied that it was impossible to take Lena with her.

But her family did not see it thus, especially Mrs. Samuel Merrifield, the child’s guardian. She insisted that it was her husband’s duty to bring the little one to London for advice, and to remove her from all the weakening, morbid influences of Vale Leston.