"Yes, if you want to have me. Oh, children!" continued Polly, "do you think we can any of us ever do anything naughty again if father gets better?"
Whether it was the children's faith or the children's prayer, certain it is that from that moment the alarming symptoms in connection with Dr. Maybright's illness abated. It was some days before he was pronounced out of danger, but even that happy hour arrived in due course, and one by one his children were allowed to come to see him.
Mrs. Cameron meanwhile arranged matters pretty much as she pleased downstairs. Helen, who from the first had insisted on nursing her father herself, had no time to housekeep. Polly's sprained ankle would not get well in a minute, and, besides, other circumstances had combined to reduce that young lady's accustomed fire and ardor. Consequently, Mrs. Cameron had matters all her own way, and there is not the least doubt that she and Scorpion between them managed to create a good deal of moral and physical disquietude.
"Well," she said to herself, "when all is said and done, that poor man who is on the flat of his back upstairs is my sainted Helen's husband; and if at such a time as this Maria Cameron should harbor ill-will in her heart it would but ill become the leader of some of the largest philanthropic societies in Bath. No, for the present my place is here, and no black looks, nor surly answers, nor impertinent remarks, will keep Maria Cameron from doing her duty."
Accordingly Mrs. Power gave a month's notice, and Alice wept so profusely that her eyes for the time being were seriously injured. Scorpion bit the new kitchen-maid Jane twice, who went into hysterics and expected hydrophobia daily. But notwithstanding these and sundry other fracases, Mrs. Cameron steadily pursued her way. She looked into account-books, she interviewed the butcher, she dismissed the baker, she overhauled the store-room, and after her own fashion--and a disagreeable fashion it was--did a good deal of indirect service to the family.
Flower in particular she followed round so constantly and persistently that the young girl began to wonder if Mrs. Cameron seriously and really intended to punish her, by now bereaving her of her senses.