George G.o.dolphin meanwhile had gone home, and was sitting with his wife and child. The room was bright with light and fire, and George's spirits were bright in accordance with it. He had been enlarging upon the prospect offered to him, describing a life in India in vivid colours; had drawn some imaginative pen-and-ink sketches of Miss Meta on a camel's back; in a gorgeous palanquin; in an open terrace gallery, being fanned by about fifty slaves: the young lady herself looking on at the pictures in a high state of excitement, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks flushed. Maria seemed to partake of the general hilarity. Whether she was really better, or the unexpected return of her husband had infused into her artificial strength, unwonted excitement, certain it is that she was not looking very ill that night: her cheeks had borrowed some of Meta's colour, and her lips were parted with a smile. The child's chatter never ceased; it was papa this, papa the other, incessantly.

Margery felt rather cross, and when she came in to add some dainty to the substantial tea she had prepared for her master, told him she hoped he would not be for carrying Miss Meta out to the wretched foreign places that were only good for convicts. India and Botany Bay ranked precisely alike in Margery's estimation.

But tea was done with and removed, and the evening went on, and Margery came again to escort Miss Meta to bed. Miss Meta was not in a hurry to be escorted. Her nimble feet were flying everywhere: from papa at the table, to mamma who sat on the sofa near the fire: from mamma to Margery, standing silent and grim, scarcely deigning to look at the pen-and-ink sketches that Meta exhibited to her.

"I don't see no sense in 'em, for my part," slightingly spoke Margery, regarding with dubious eyes one somewhat indistinct representation held up to her. "Those things bain't like Christian animals. An elephant, d'ye call it? Which is its head and which is its tail?"

Meta whisked off to her papa, elephant in hand. "Papa, which is its head, and which is its tail?"

"That's its tail," said George. "You'll know its head from its tail when you come to ride one, Margery," cried he, throwing his laughing glance at the woman.

"Me ride an elephant! me mount one o' them animals!" was the indignant response. "I should like to see myself at it! It might be just as well, sir, if you didn't talk about them to the child: I shall have her starting out of her sleep screaming to-night, fancying that a score of them's eating her up."

George laughed. Meta's busy brain was at work; very busy, very blithesome just then.

"Papa, do we have swings in India?"

"Lots of them," responded George.

"Do they go up to the trees? Are they as good as the one Mrs. Pain made for me at the Folly?"

"Ten times better than that," said George slightingly. "That was a m.u.f.f of a swing, compared with what the others will be."

Meta considered. "You didn't see it, papa. It went up--up--oh, ever so high."

"Did it?" said George. "We'll send the others higher."

"Who'll swing me?" continued Meta. "Mrs. Pain? She used to swing me before. Will she go to India with us?"

"Not she," said George. "What should she go for? Look here. Here's Meta on an elephant, and Margery on another, in attendance behind."

He had been mischievously sketching it off: Meta sitting at her ease on the elephant, her dainty little legs astride, boy fashion, was rather a pretty sight: but poor Margery grasping the animal's head, her face one picture of horror in her fear of falling, and some half-dozen natives propping her up on either side, was only a ludicrous one.

Margery looked daggers, but nothing could exceed Meta's delight. "Draw mamma upon one, papa; make her elephant alongside mine."

"Draw mamma upon one?" repeated George. "I think we'll have mamma in a palanquin; the elephants shall be reserved for you and Margery."

"Is she coming to bed to-night, or isn't she?" demanded Margery, in uncommonly sharp tones, speaking for the benefit of the company generally, not to any one in particular.

Meta paid little attention; George appeared to pay less. In taking his knife from his waistcoat-pocket to cut the pencil, preparatory to "drawing mamma and the palanquin," he happened to bring forth a ring.

Those quick little eyes saw it: they saw most things. "That's Uncle Thomas's!" cried the child.

In his somewhat hasty attempt to return it to his pocket, George let the ring fall to the ground, and it rolled towards Margery. She picked it up, wonderingly--almost fearfully. She had believed that Mr. G.o.dolphin would not part with his signet-ring during life: the ring which he had offered to the bankruptcy commissioners, and they, with every token of respect, had returned to him.

"Oh, sir! Surely he is not dead?"

"Dead!" echoed George, looking at her in surprise. "I left him better than usual, Margery, when I came away."

Margery said no more. Meta was not so scrupulous. "Uncle Thomas always has that on his finger: he seals his letters with it. Why have you brought it away, papa?"

"He does not want it to seal letters with any longer, Meta," George answered, speaking gravely now, and stroking her golden curls. "I shall use it in future for sealing mine."

"Who'll wear it?" asked Meta. "You, or Uncle Thomas?"

"I shall--some time. But it is quite time Meta was in bed; and Margery looks as if she thought so. There! just a few of mamma's grapes, and away to dream of elephants."

Some fine white grapes were heaped on a plate upon the table; they were what George had brought from London for his wife. He broke some off for Meta, and that spoiled young damsel climbed on his knee, while she ate them, chattering incessantly.

"Will there be parrots in India? Red ones?"

"Plenty. Red and green and blue and yellow," returned George, who was rather magnificent in his promises. "There'll be monkeys as well--as Margery's fond of them."

Margery flung off in a temper. But the words had brought a recollection to Meta. She bustled up on her knees, neglecting her grapes, gazing at her papa in consternation.

"Uncle Reginald was to bring me home some monkeys and some parrots and a Chinese dog that won't bite. How shall I have them, papa, if I have gone to Cal--what is it?" She spoke better than she did, and could sound the "th" now; but the name of the place was difficult to be remembered.

"Calcutta. We'll write word to Regy's ship to come round there and leave them," replied ready George.

It satisfied the child. She finished her grapes, and then George took her in his arms to Maria to be kissed, and afterwards put her down outside the door to offended Margery, after kissing lovingly her pretty lips and her golden curls.

His manner had changed when he returned. He stood by the fire, near Maria, grave and earnest, and began talking more seriously to her on this new project than he had done in the presence of his child.

"I think I should do wrong were I to refuse it: do not you, Maria? It is an offer that is not often met with."

"Yes, I think you would do wrong to refuse it. It is far better than anything I had hoped for."

"And can you be ready to start by New Year's Day?"

"I--I could be ready, of course," she answered. "But I--I--don't know whether----"

She came to a final stop. George looked at her in surprise: in addition to her hesitation, he detected considerable emotion.

She stood up by him and leaned her arm on the mantel-piece. She strove to speak quietly, to choke down the rebellious rising in her throat: her breath went and came, her bosom heaved. "George, I am not sure whether I shall be able to undertake the voyage. I am not sure that I shall live to go out."

Did his heart beat a shade quicker? He looked at her more in surprise still than in any other feeling. He had not in the least realized this faint suggestion of the future.

"My darling, what do you mean?"

He pa.s.sed his arm round her waist, and drew her to him. Maria let her head fall upon his shoulder, and the tears began to trickle down her wasted cheeks.

"I cannot get strong, George. I grow weaker instead of stronger; and I begin to think I shall never be well again. I begin to know I shall never be well again!" she added, amending the words. "I have thought it for some time."

"How do you feel?" he asked, breaking the silence that had ensued. "Are you in any pain?"

"I have had a pain in my throat ever since the--ever since the summer: and I have a constant inward pain here"--touching her chest. "Mr. Snow says both arise from the same cause--nervousness! but I don't know."

"Maria," he said, his voice quite trembling with its tenderness, "shall I tell you what it is? The worry of the past summer has had a bad effect upon you, and brought you into this weak state. Mr. Snow is right: it is nervousness: and you must have change of scene ere you can recover. Is he attending you?"

"He calls every other day or so, and he sends me medicine of different kinds; tonics, I fancy. I wish I could get strong! I might--perhaps--get a little better, that is, I might feel a trifle better, if I were not always so entirely alone. I wish," she more timidly added, "that you could be more with me than you are."