Fantasy Classics: Adela Cathcart Edition – Complete Tales in One Volume. George MacDonald
don't think the princess could have rowed, though—without gravity, you know," said the schoolmaster.
"But she did," said Adela. "I won't have my uncle found fault with. It is a very funny, and a very pretty story."
"What is the moral of it?" drawled Mrs. Cathcart, with the first syllable of moral very long and very gentle.
"That you need not be afraid of ill-natured aunts, though they are witches," said Adela.
"No, my dear; that's not it," I said. "It is, that you need not mind forgetting your poor relations. No harm will come of it in the end."
"I think the moral is," said the doctor, "that no girl is worth anything till she has cried a little."
Adela gave him a quick glance, and then cast her eyes down. Whether he had looked at her I don't know. But I should think not.—Neither the clergyman nor his wife had made any remark. I turned to them.
"I am afraid you do not approve of my poor story," I said.
"On the contrary," replied Mr. Armstrong, "I think there is a great deal of meaning in it, to those who can see through its fairy-gates. What do you think of it, my dear?"
"I was so pleased with the earnest parts of it, that the fun jarred upon me a little, I confess," said Mrs. Armstrong. "But I daresay that was silly."
"I think it was, my dear. But you can afford to be silly sometimes, in a good cause."
"You might have given us the wedding." said Mrs. Bloomfield.
"I am an old bachelor, you see. I fear I don't give weddings their due," I answered. "I don't care for them—in stories, I mean."
"When will you dine with us again?" asked the colonel.
"When you please," answered the curate.
"To-morrow, then?"
"Rather too soon that, is it not? Who is to read the next story?"
"Why, you, of course," answered his brother.
"I am at your service," rejoined Mr. Armstrong. "But to-morrow!"
"Don't you think, Ralph," said his wife, "you could read better if you followed your usual custom of dining early?"
"I am sure I should, Lizzie. Don't you think, Colonel Cathcart, it would be better to come in the evening, just after your dinner? I like to dine early, and I am a great tea-drinker. If we might have a huge tea-kettle on the fire, and tea-pot to correspond on the table, and I, as I read my story, and the rest of the company, as they listen, might help ourselves, I think it would be very jolly, and very homely."
To this the colonel readily agreed. I heard the ladies whispering a little, and the words—"Very considerate indeed!" from Mrs. Bloomfield, reached my ears. Indeed I had thought that the colonel's hospitality was making him forget his servants. And I could not help laughing to think what Beeves's face would have been like, if he had heard us all invited to dinner again, the next day.
Whether Adela suspected us now, I do not know. She said nothing to show it.
Just before the doctor left, with his brother and sister, he went up to her, and said, in a by-the-bye sort of way:
"I am sorry to hear that you have not been quite well of late, Miss Cathcart. You have been catching cold, I am afraid. Let me feel your pulse."
She gave him her wrist directly, saying:
"I feel much better to-night, thank you."
He stood—listening to the pulse, you would have said—his whole attitude was so entirely that of one listening, with his eyes doing nothing at all. He stood thus for a while, without consulting his watch, looking as if the pulse had brought him into immediate communication with the troubled heart itself, and he could feel every flutter and effort which it made. Then he took out his watch and counted.
Now that his eyes were quite safe, I saw Adela's eyes steal up to his face, and rest there for a half a minute with a reposeful expression. I felt that there was something healing in the very presence and touch of the man—so full was he of health and humanity; and I thought Adela felt that he was a good man, and one to be trusted in.
He gave her back her hand, as it were, so gently did he let it go, and said:
"I will send you something as soon as I get home, to take at once. I presume you will go to bed soon?"
"I will, if you think it best."
And so Mr. Henry Armstrong was, without more ado, tacitly installed as physician to Miss Adela Cathcart; and she seemed quite content with the new arrangement.
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