"... One so often hears," so the letter ran, "of a case of long illness in which the one who is strong, and who acts as nurse to the invalid, breaks down before the end comes. To me it has always seemed to show that the strong one's courage has failed somehow, and that, had zeal been stronger or faith greater, she might have endured to the end...." And, again, in a postscript: "When I was younger I was very impatient, and I think I could not well have borne it had I known that life was to be a waiting time. I do not say this in any discontented spirit, dear, and I only write to you because you always understand...." And then the letter broke off suddenly, and I handed it back to Mrs. Fielden.
"So this is you, as Miss Lydia knows you," I said.
"I want you to go and see her when you go back to Stowel. Will you?" said Mrs. Fielden. "Miss Lydia is an angel, I think; the best woman really that ever lived. Will you take her some things I am sending her, and ask how she is when you go back?"
We drove under the trees of Richmond Park in Mrs. Fielden's big, luxurious carriage. She generally drives in a Victoria, and I asked her why she had the landau out this afternoon.
"A whim," said Mrs. Fielden. "I am full of whims."
But of course a landau is the only carriage in which a lame man, who has to sit with his foot up, can put it comfortably on the opposite seat.
We drove onwards, and she stopped the carriage to look at the view from Richmond Hill, and the soft air blew up to us in a manner very cool and refreshing; and then we got out and walked about for a time, and Mrs. Fielden gave me her arm.
"I don't really require an arm," I said, "but I like taking yours."
"It is a very strong arm," said Mrs. Fielden; and she exclaimed quickly, "I believe I am getting fat! My maid tells me all my dresses want altering. I wish it was time to think about beginning to hunt again."
"Do you know," I said, "I always thought, till I got back to England, that my leg had been taken off below the knee, and that I should be able to get astride of a horse again. I never used to see it, of course, when they dressed it; and when I counted up the things I should be able to do, riding was always one of them. I didn't sell my horses till just the other day."