“I tell you I am a very whimsical woman,” she said at length; “above all things I am fond of hearing every man’s story, and tracing out the different threads of life. It is my amusement, like any other. If I bring this lady to speech of Dora, and show her how she could be of real advantage to both the girl and her father, will you promise me to come to me another time, and tell me, as far as you know, everything that has happened to you since the day you were born?”
Young Gordon’s stiffness melted away. The surprise on his face, which had been mingled with annoyance, turned into mirth and pleasure. “You don’t know what you are bringing on yourself,” he said, “nothing very amusing. I have little in my own record. I never had any adventures. But if that is your fancy, surely I will, whenever you like, tell you everything that I know about myself.”
She rose up, with the light fading a little, but yet leaving behind it a sweetness which was not generally in Miss Bethune’s face. “Let your friend come in the afternoon at three any day--it is then her father takes his sleep--and ask for Miss Bethune. I will see that it is made all right. And as for you, you will leave me your address?” she said, going with him towards the gate. “You said you believed your mother was living--is your father living too?”
“He died a long time ago,” said the young man, and then added: “May I not know who it is that is standing our friend?”
Perhaps Miss Bethune did not hear him; certainly she let him out; and turned to lock the gate, without making any reply.
Dora had now a great deal to do in her father’s room. The two nurses had at last been got rid of, to the great relief of all in the house except Mrs. Simcox, whose bills shrank back at once to their original level, very different from what they had been, and who felt herself, besides, to be reduced to quite a lower level in point of society, her thoughts and imaginations having been filled, as well as those of Janie and Molly, by tales of the hospitals and sick-rooms, which made them feel as if translated into a world where the gaiety of perfect health and constant exercise triumphed over every distress. Janie and Molly had both determined to be nurses in the enthusiasm created by these recitals. They turned their little nightcaps, the only things they had which could be so converted, into imitation nurses’ caps, and masqueraded in them in the spare moments when they could shut themselves into their little rooms and play at hospital. And the sitting-room downstairs returned for these young persons to its original dulness when the nurses went away. Dora was in her father’s room all day, and required a great deal of help from Jane, the maid-of-all-work, in bringing up and taking away the things that were wanted: and Gilchrist watched over him by night. There was a great deal of beef tea and chicken broth to be prepared--no longer the time and trouble saving luxuries of Brand’s Essence and turtle soup. He would have none of these luxuries now. He inquired into every expense, and rejected presents, and was angry rather than grateful when anything was done for him. What he would have liked would have been to have eaten nothing at all, to have passed over meal-times, and lived upon a glass of water or milk and a biscuit. But this could not be allowed; and Mrs. Simcox had now a great deal of trouble in cooking for him, whereas before she had scarcely any at all. Mr. Mannering, indeed, was not an amiable convalescent. The breaking up of all the habits of his life was dreadful to him. The coming back to new habits was more dreadful still. He thought with horror of the debts that must have accumulated while he was ill; and when he spoke of them, looked and talked as if the whole world had been in a conspiracy against him, instead of doing everything, and contriving everything, as was the real state of the case, for his good.