Nothing could exceed the heartiness of Mrs. Brett's manner. Her very smile brought sunshine with it, and her firm voice confidence. It seemed in a minute to those agitated and unhappy girls that a ray of sunlight had fallen upon them, and that the world was not quite so miserable after all.
They were still standing talking eagerly in the hall when a fly drew up at the door and Dr. Marshall stepped out. He had, in fact, followed Mrs. Brett and the Professor up from the station. He saw Rosamund, and recognized her as the girl he had seen some hours before walking alone along the high-road. He went up to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Are you one of the young ladies who live here?"
"Yes," she replied, glancing at him in surprise, for so lost had she been in her own thoughts that she had positively hardly observed him when he swiftly passed her in the early morning.
"Then I congratulate you upon your powers of early rising."
Rosamund colored. Lucy's eyes were fixed on her face.
"My dear Miss Lucy," said the doctor, "your friend, Miss"----
"My name is Rosamund Cunliffe," said Rosamund.
"Your friend Miss Cunliffe has put all the rest of you young ladies to shame. She was walking abroad this morning between four and five o'clock at some distance from here."
Lucy's eyes flashed fire. Rosamund found herself turning pale. The Professor looked at her. Suddenly Rosamund went up to the Professor and took his hand.
"I want to speak to you, and alone," she said.
"Mrs. Brett, my kind sister-in-law, has promised to take all my young people to her house in Dartford," he said. "She proposes that they should return with her immediately. Then the house will be quite quiet for the invalid, and there will be no danger of the disease spreading."
"If it does spread I shall be on the spot to grapple with it," said Dr. Marshall.--"What an excellent plan, Mrs. Brett, and how exactly like you!--Now then, young ladies, the sooner you pack up the better. You needn't take a great many things; they can be sent to you afterwards. The great thing is to get away. It may be in the air; it may be--we cannot tell what; but the sooner all of you young people are out of Sunnyside the safer it will be."
"It would not be fair," said the Professor, "to ask the Singletons to take any of them in. We did think of that at first. We know how particularly kind Mr. Singleton is. But there are his own children to be thought of; and as he is the rector of the parish he has also to consider his parishioners."