"
"Dear, dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheldon captiously, "you are really a
most extraordinary girl."
Mrs. Sheldon could almost have found it in her heart to say, a most
ungrateful girl. There did seem a kind of ingratitude in this futile
consumption of old port at fifteen shillings a bottle.
"I'll tell you what it is, Lotta," she said presently, "I am convinced
that your illness--or your weakness--is all fancy."
"Why so, mamma?"
"Because, if it were real weakness, that old port must have made you
stronger. And the fact that the port does you no good, is a proof that
your weakness is only fancy. Girls of your age are so full of fancies.
Look at me, and the martyrdom I go through with my nervous headaches,
which perfectly prostrate me, after the least worry or excitement. The
nerves of my head, after going into the butcher's book, are perfect
agony. When you come to have a house to look after, and find what it is
to have the same saddle of mutton charged for twice over, with the most
daring impudence--or to have capers and currie-powder, that you _know_
you've never had, staring at you from every page of your grocer's book,
and nothing but your memory between you and utter ruin--you'll discover
what it is to be really ill."
In this easy manner did Mrs. Sheldon dismiss the subject of her daughters
illness. But it was not so easily dismissed by Diana Paget, who loved her
friend with a profound and pure affection, than which no sister's love
was ever warmer or stronger.
Pages:
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299