“but there was early and sound advice taken in Lady Penelope's case. My friend, the late Earl of Featherhead, was a man of judgment—did little in his family but by rule of medicine—so that, what with the waters, and what with my own care, Lady Penelope is only freakish—fanciful—that's all—and her quality bears it out—the peccant principle might have broken out under other treatment.”
“Ay—she has been weel-friended,” said the widow; “but this bairn Mowbray, puir thing! how came she to be sae left to hersell?”
“Her mother was dead—her father thought of nothing but his sports,” said the Doctor. “Her brother was educated in England, and cared for nobody but himself, if he had been here. What education she got was at her own hand—what reading she read was in a library full of old romances—what friends or company she had was what chance sent her—then no family-physician, not even a good surgeon, within ten miles! And so you cannot wonder if the poor thing became unsettled.”
“Puir thing!—no doctor!—nor even a surgeon!—But, Doctor,” said the widow, “maybe the puir thing had the enjoyment of her health, ye ken, and, then”——
“Ah! ha, ha!—why then, madam, she needed a physician far more than if she had been delicate. A skilful physician, Mrs. Blower, knows how to bring down that robust health, which is a very alarming state of the frame when it is considered secundum artem. Most sudden deaths happen when people are in a robust state of health. Ah! that state of perfect health is what the doctor dreads most on behalf of his patient.”
“Ay, ay, Doctor?—I am quite sensible, nae doubt,” said the widow, “of the great advantage of having a skeelfu' person about ane.”
Here the Doctor's voice, in his earnestness to convince Mrs. Blower of the danger of supposing herself capable of living and breathing without a medical man's permission, sunk into a soft pleading tone, of which our reporter could not catch the sound. He was, as great orators will sometimes be, “inaudible in the gallery.”
Meanwhile, Lady Penelope overwhelmed Clara Mowbray with her caresses. In what degree her ladyship, at her heart, loved this young person, might be difficult to ascertain—probably in the degree in which a child loves a favourite toy. But Clara was a toy not always to be come by—as whimsical in her way as her ladyship in her own, only that poor Clara's singularities were real, and her ladyship's chiefly affected. Without adopting the harshness of the Doctor's conclusions concerning the former, she was certainly unequal in her spirits; and her occasional fits of levity were chequered by very long intervals of sadness. Her levity also appeared, in the world's eye, greater than it really was; for she had never been under the restraint of society which was really good, and entertained an undue contempt for that which she sometimes mingled with; having unhappily none to teach her the important truth, that some forms and restraints are to be observed, less in respect to others than to ourselves. Her dress, her manners, and her ideas, were therefore very much her own; and though they became her wonderfully, yet, like Ophelia's garlands, and wild snatches of melody, they were calculated to excite compassion and melancholy, even while they amused the observer.
“And why came you not to dinner?—We expected you—your throne was prepared.”
“I had scarce come to tea,” said Miss Mowbray, “of my own freewill. But my brother says your ladyship proposes to come to Shaws-Castle, and he insisted it was quite right and necessary, to confirm you in so flattering a purpose, that I should come and say, Pray do, Lady Penelope; and so now here am I to say, Pray, do come.”
“Is an invitation so flattering limited to me alone, my dear Clara?—Lady Binks will be jealous.”
“Bring Lady Binks, if she has the condescension to honour us”—[a bow was very stiffly exchanged between the ladies]—“bring Mr. Springblossom—Winterblossom—and all the lions and lionesses—we have room for the whole collection. My brother, I suppose, will bring his own particular regiment of bears, which, with the usual assortment of monkeys seen in all caravans, will complete the menagerie. How you are to be entertained at Shaws-Castle, is, I thank Heaven, not my business, but John's.”
“We shall want no formal entertainment, my love,” said Lady Penelope; “a déjeûner à la fourchette—we know, Clara, you would die of doing the honours of a formal dinner.”
“Not a bit; I should live long enough to make my will, and bequeath all large parties to old Nick, who invented them.”
“Miss Mowbray,” said Lady Binks, who had been thwarted by this free-spoken young lady, both in her former character of a coquette and romp, and in that of a prude which she at present wore—“Miss Mowbray declares for
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