"Since that day, when John said we might send off that thankworthy telegram, there has been daily progress. I have had one of my headaches.

That monarch John found it out, and turned me out. I could bear to go, for I knew my boy was safe with him. He made me over to Primrose, who nursed me as tenderly as my Babie could have done, and indeed, I begin to think she will soon be as near and dear to me as my Sydney or Elvira.

She has a power over Bobus that no one else ever had, and she is very lovely in expression as well as features, but how will so ardent a Christian as she is receive one still so far off as my poor Robert, though indeed I think he has at least come so far as the cry, 'Help Thou mine unbelief.'

"So now they have let me come back to my Jock, and I see visibly his improvement. He holds out his hand, and he smiles, and he speaks now and then, the dreadful oppression is gone, and all the dangerous symptoms are abating, and I cannot tell how happy and thankful we are. 'Send my love, and tell Sydney she has a blessed Monk,' he says, as he wakes, and sees me writing.

"That dear Monk says he will not go home till he can carry home his patient. When that will be I cannot tell, for he cannot sit up in bed yet. Dear Sydney, how I thank her! John says it was not his treatment, but, under Divine Providence, youthful nature that had had her rest, and begun to rally her strength. But under that blessing, it was John's steady, faithful strength and care that enabled the restoration to take place.

"My dear child's loving

"MOTHER CAREY."

CHAPTER XLII. -- DISENCHANTED.

Whatever page we turn, However much we learn, Let there be something left to dream of still.

Longfellow.

It was on a very cold day of the cold spring of 1879 that three ladies descended at the Liverpool station, escorted by a military-looking gentleman. He left them standing while he made inquiries, but his servant had antic.i.p.ated him. "The steamer has been signalled, my Lord.

It will be in about four o'clock."

"There will be time to go to the hotel and secure rooms," said one lady.

"Oh, Reeves can do that. Pray let us come down to the docks and see them come in."

No answer till all four were seated in a fly, rattling through the street, but on the repet.i.tion of "Are we going to the docks?" his Lordship, with a resolute twirl of his long, light moustache, replied, "No, Sydney. If you think I am going to have you making a scene on deck, falling on your husband's breast, and all that sort of thing, you are much mistaken! I shall lodge you all quietly in the hotel, and you may wait there, while I go down with Reeves, and receive them like a rational being."

"Really, Cecil, that's too bad. He let me come on board!"

"Do you think I should have brought you here if I had thought you meant to make yourself ridiculous?"

"It is of no use, Sydney," said Babie; "there's no dealing with the stern and staid pere de famille. I wonder what he would have liked Essie to do, if he had had to go and leave her for nearly two months when he had only been married a week?"

"Essie is quite a different thing--I mean she has sense and self-possession."

"Mamma, won't you speak for us?" implored Sydney. "I did behave so well when he went! n.o.body would have guessed we hadn't been married fifty years."

"Still I think Cecil is quite right, and that it may be better for them all to manage the landing quietly."

"Without a pack of women," said Cecil. "Here we are! I hope you will find a tolerable room for him and no stairs."

As if poor Mrs. Evelyn were not well enough used to choosing rooms for invalids!

Twilight had come, the gas had been turned on, and the three anxious ladies stood in the window gazing vainly at endless vehicles, when the door opened and they beheld sundry figures entering.

Sydney and Barbara flew, the one to her husband, the other to her mother, and presently all stood round the fire looking at one another.

Mrs. Evelyn made a gesture to a very slender and somewhat pale figure to sit down in a large easy chair.

"Thank you, I'm not tired," he briskly said, standing with a caressing hand on his friend's shoulder. "Here's Cecil can't quite believe yet that I have the use of my limbs."

"Yes," said John, "no sooner did he come on board, than he made a rush at the poor sailor who had broken his leg, and was going to be carried ash.o.r.e on a hammock. He was on the point of embracing him, red beard and all, when he was forcibly dragged off by Jock himself whom he nearly knocked down."

"Well," said Cecil, as Sydney fairly danced round him in revengeful glee, "there was the Monk solicitously lifting him on one side, and Mother Carey a.s.sisting with a smelling-bottle on the other, so what could I suppose?"

"All for want of us," said Sydney.

"And think of the cunning of him," added Babie; "shutting us up here that he might give way to his feelings undisturbed!"

"I promised to go and speak about that poor fellow at the hospital,"

cried John, with sudden recollection.

"You had better let me," said Jock.

"You will stay where you are."

"I consider him my patient."

"If that's the way you two fought over your solitary case all the way home," said Babie, "I wonder there's a fragment left of him."

"It was only three days ago," said John, "and Jock has been a new man ever since he picked the poor fellow up on deck, but I'm not going to let him stir to-night."

"Let me come with you, Johnny," entreated Sydney; "it will be so nice!

Oh, no, I don't mind the cold!"

"Here," added her brother, "take the poor fellow a sovereign."

"In compensation for the sudden cooling of your affection," said Jock. "Well, if it is an excuse for an excursion with Sydney I'll not interfere, but ask him for his sister's address in London, for I promised to tell her about him."

"Oh," cried Babie, at the word 'London,' "then you have heard from Dr.

Medlicott?"

"I did once," said John, "with some very useful suggestions, but that was a month ago or more."

"I meant," said Babie, "a letter he wrote for the chance of Jock's getting it before he sailed. There's the a.s.sistant lectureship vacant, and the Professor would not like anyone so much. It is his own appointment, not an election matter, and he meant to keep it open till he could get an answer from Jock."

"When was this?" asked Jock, flushing with eagerness.

"The 20th. Dr. Medlicott came down to Fordham for Sunday, to ask if it was worth while to telegraph, or if I thought you would be well enough.

It is not much of a salary, but it is a step, and Dr. Medlicott knows they would put you on the staff of the hospital, and then you are open to anything."

Jock drew a long breath and looked at his mother. "The very thing I've wished," he said.

"Exactly. Must he answer at once?"

"The Professor would like a telegram, yes or no, at once."