Mrs. Vincy sprang to the window and opened it in an instant, thinking

only of Fred and not of medical etiquette. Lydgate was only two yards

off on the other side of some iron palisading, and turned round at the

sudden sound of the sash, before she called to him. In two minutes he

was in the room, and Rosamond went out, after waiting just long enough

to show a pretty anxiety conflicting with her sense of what was

becoming.

Lydgate had to hear a narrative in which Mrs. Vincy's mind insisted

with remarkable instinct on every point of minor importance, especially

on what Mr. Wrench had said and had not said about coming again. That

there might be an awkward affair with Wrench, Lydgate saw at once; but

the case was serious enough to make him dismiss that consideration: he

was convinced that Fred was in the pink-skinned stage of typhoid fever,

and that he had taken just the wrong medicines. He must go to bed

immediately, must have a regular nurse, and various appliances and

precautions must be used, about which Lydgate was particular. Poor

Mrs. Vincy's terror at these indications of danger found vent in such

words as came most easily. She thought it "very ill usage on the part

of Mr. Wrench, who had attended their house so many years in preference

to Mr. Peacock, though Mr. Peacock was equally a friend. Why Mr.

Wrench should neglect her children more than others, she could not for

the life of her understand. He had not neglected Mrs. Larcher's when

they had the measles, nor indeed would Mrs. Vincy have wished that he

should. And if anything should happen--"

Here poor Mrs. Vincy's spirit quite broke down, and her Niobe throat

and good-humored face were sadly convulsed. This was in the hall out

of Fred's hearing, but Rosamond had opened the drawing-room door, and

now came forward anxiously. Lydgate apologized for Mr. Wrench, said

that the symptoms yesterday might have been disguising, and that this

form of fever was very equivocal in its beginnings: he would go

immediately to the druggist's and have a prescription made up in order

to lose no time, but he would write to Mr. Wrench and tell him what had

been done.

"But you must come again--you must go on attending Fred. I can't have

my boy left to anybody who may come or not. I bear nobody ill-will,

thank God, and Mr. Wrench saved me in the pleurisy, but he'd better

have let me die--if--if--"

"I will meet Mr. Wrench here, then, shall I?" said Lydgate, really

believing that Wrench was not well prepared to deal wisely with a case

of this kind.




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