Whatever his secret care
might have been, it was now passive; he was a general favourite, and
courted in society. He was still young; the face as genial, the manners
as free, the dark-blue eyes as kindly as of yore; eminently attractive in
earlier days, he was so still; and his love for his wife amounted to a
passion.
At the close of a sharp winter, when they had come up to town in January,
that Lord Hartledon might be at his post, and the countess-dowager was
inflicting upon them one of her long visits, it happened that Lord Elster
seemed very poorly. Mr. Brook was called in, and said he would send a
powder. He was called in so often to the boy as to take it quite as a
matter of course; and, truth to say, thought the present indisposition
nothing but a slight cold.
Late in the evening the two boys happened to be alone in the nursery,
the nurse being temporarily absent from it. Edward was now a tall,
slender, handsome boy in knickerbockers; Reginald a timid little fellow,
several years younger--rendered timid by Edward's perpetual tyranny,
which he might not resent. Edward was quiet enough this evening; he felt
ill and shivery, and sat close to the fire. Casting his eyes upwards, he
espied Mr. Brook's powder on the mantelpiece, with the stereotyped
direction--"To be taken at bedtime." It was lying close to the jam-pot,
which the head-nurse had put ready.
Pages:
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536