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Updated: June 7, 2025
"Of course it's lovely," smiled Billy, rising; "but I fancy I'd better go and get ready to meet Mrs. Hartwell, or the 'lovely' thing will be telling me that it's half-past eleven!" And she tripped laughingly from the room.
She looked very keenly into her brothers' face, and seemed well pleased with the appearance of Cyril and Bertram, but not so much so with William's countenance. "William does NOT look well," she declared one day when she and Billy were alone together. "Sick? Uncle William sick? Oh, I hope not!" cried the girl. "I don't know whether it's 'sick' or not," returned Mrs. Hartwell. "But it's something.
Juliana's opinion is, that dear Olympia cared no more for Richard Fairfax than she cared for any of her other suitors, or why should she have married Lord Latimer? Olympia was her own mistress, and pleased herself no one else, for we should have preferred Richard Fairfax, all of us. But she had her way, and there was a breach between Hartwell and Abbotsmead for many years in consequence.
A fold of white linen containing crushed ice lay on her forehead, and the hollow cheeks and thin lips were flushed to vermilion hue. It was not scarlet, but brain fever, and this was the fifth day that the sleeper had lain in a heavy stupor. Dr. Hartwell put back the hand he held, and, stooping over, looked long and anxiously at the flushed face.
Clara sprang to the door; Dr. Hartwell pointed to the sickroom, and said gently: "He has ceased to suffer. He is at rest." She looked at him vacantly an instant, and whispered, under her breath: "He is not dead?" He did not reply, and, with a frightened expression, she glided into the chamber of death, calling piteously on the sleeper to come back and shield her.
The room was darkened, and the summer wind stole through the blinds stealthily, as if awed by the solitude of the sick-chamber. Dr. Hartwell sat by the low French bedstead, holding one emaciated hand in his, counting the pulse which bounded so fiercely in the blue veins.
There followed the click of a key in the lock and the opening of a heavy door; then, full in the glare of the electric lights stood a plainly nervous man, and a girl with startled, appealing eyes. "My dear," stammered William, "this is my sister, Kate, Mrs. Hartwell; and here are Cyril and Bertram, whom I've told you of. And of course I don't need to say to them that you are Billy." It was over.
He paused in the hall, and said eagerly: "Has Hartwell been here lately?" "Yes; he was here last week." "Did he tell you of his whim about traveling East?" "Yes; he told me." "Beulah, take care what you are about! You are working mischief not easily rectified. Child, keep Guy at home!" "He is master of his own movements, and you know his stubborn will.
Over all other sounds could be heard Dick's low-toned: "One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four!" The Preston boys heard him, and Dick noted, with amusement, that they unconsciously adapted their own stroke to his count. "Cut that numeral business," grunted Bob Hartwell, across the water. "You're queering our fellows." "They mustn't listen to our signals," Dick laughed back.
Hartwell entered he found her standing with the infant clasped in her arms, and, as his eyes rested curiously upon her face, she forgot that he was a stranger, and, springing to meet him, exclaimed: "Oh, sir; will he die?" With his fingers on the bounding pulse, he answered: "He is very ill. Where is his mother? Who are you?" "His mother is at a concert, and I am his nurse."
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