just these ten days? There can’t be any real danger for her with grandmamma, and I should be happier about granny.”
“You don’t trust Joe to take care of me?”
“Not if Joe is to be out all day. There will be nobody to trot up and down stairs for you. Come, it is only what she begs for herself, and she really is perfectly well.”
“As if I could have a child victimised to me,” said granny.
“The little Cockney thinks the victimising would be in going to the deserts with only the boys and me,” laughed Carey; “But I think a week later will be quite time enough to sweep the cobwebs out of her brain.”
“And you can do without her?” inquired Mrs. Brownlow. “You don’t want her to help to keep the boys in order?”
“Thank you, I can do that better without her,” said Carey. “She exasperates them sometimes.”
“I believe granny is thinking whether she is not wanted to keep Mother Carey in order as well as her chickens. Hasn’t mother been taken for your governess, Carey?”
“No, no, Joe, that’s too bad. They asked Janet at the dancing-school whether her sister was not going to join.”
“Her younger sister?”
“No, I tell you, her half-sister. But Clara Acton will do discretion for us, granny; and I promise you we won’t do anything her husband says is very desperate! Don’t be afraid.”
“No,” said grandmamma, smiling as she kissed her daughter-in-law, and rose to take her candle; “I am never afraid of anything a mother can share with her boys.”
“Even if she is nearly a tomboy herself,” laughed the husband, with rather a teasing air, towards his little wife. “Good night, mother. Shall not we be snug with nobody left but Janet, who might be great-grandmother to us both?”
“I really am glad that Janet should stay with granny,” said Carey, when he had shut the door behind the old lady; “she would be left alone so many hours while you are out, and she does need more waiting on than she used to do.”
“You think so? I never see her grow older.”
“Not in the least older in mind or spirits; but she is not so strong, nor so willing to exert herself, and she falls asleep more in the afternoon. One reason for which I am less sorry to go on before, is that I shall be able to judge whether the rooms are comfortable enough for her, and I suppose we may change if they are not.”
“To another place, if you think best.”
“Only you will not let her stay at home altogether. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“She will only do so on the penalty of keeping me, and you may trust her not to do that,” said Joe, laughing with the confidence of an only son.
“I shall come back and fetch you if you don’t appear under a fortnight. Did you do any more this morning to the great experiment, Magnum Bonum?”
She spoke the words in a proud, shy, exulting semi-whisper, somewhat as Gutenberg’s wife might have asked after his printing-press.
“No. I haven’t had half an hour to myself to-day; at least when I could have attended to it. Don’t be afraid, Carey, I’m not daunted by the doubts of our good friends. I see your eyes reproaching me with that.”
“Oh no, as you said, Sir Matthew Fleet mistrusts anything entirely new, and the professor is never sanguine. I am almost glad they are so stupid, it will make our pleasure all the sweeter.”
“You silly little bird, if you sit on that egg it will be sure to be addled. If it should come to any good, probably it will take longer than our life-time to work into people’s brains.”
“No,” said Carey, “I know the real object is the relieving pain and saving life, and that is what you care for more than the honour and glory. But do you remember the fly on the coach wheel?”
“Well, the coach wheel means to stand still for a little while. I don’t mean to try another experiment till my brains have been turned out to grass, and I can come to it fresh.”
“Ah! ‘tis you that really need the holiday,” said Carey, wistfully; “much more than any of us. Look at this great crow’s foot,” tracing it with her finger.
“Laughing, my dear. That’s the outline of the risible muscle. A Mother Carey and her six ridiculous chickens can’t but wear out furrows with laughing at them.”
“I only know I wish it were you that were going, and I that were staying at home.”
“‘You shall do my work to-day,
And I’ll go follow the plough,’”
said her husband, laughing. “There are the notes of my lecture, if you’ll go and give it.”
“Ah! we should not be like that celebrated couple. You would manage the boys much better than I could doctor your patients.”
“I don’t know that. The boys are never so comfortable, when I’ve got them alone. But, considering the hour, I should think the best preliminary would be to put out the lamp and go to bed.”
“I suppose it is time; but I always think this last talk before going upstairs, the best thing in the whole day!” said the happy wife as she took the candle.
CHAPTER III. – THE WHITE SLATE
Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street. Doors, where my heart was wont to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand— A hand that can be clasped no more. Behold me, for I cannot sleep.—Tennyson.
“Mother Carey,” to call her by the family name that her husband had given the first day she held a baby in her arms, had a capacity of enjoyment that what she called her exile could not destroy. Even Bobus left theory behind him and became a holiday boy, and the whole six climbed rocks, paddled, boated, hunted sea weeds and sea animals, lived on the beach from morning to night; and were exceedingly amused by the people, who insisted on addressing the senior of the party as “Miss,” and thought them a young girl and her brothers under the charge of Mrs. Acton. She, though really not a year older than her friend, looked like a worn and staid matron by her side, and was by no means disposed to scramble barefoot over slippery seaweed, or to take impromptu a part in the grand defence of the sand and shingle edition of Raglan Castle.
Even to Mrs. Acton it was a continual wonder to see how entirely under control of that little merry mother were those great, lively, spirited boys, who never seemed to think of disobeying her first word, and, while all made fun together, and she was hardly less active and enterprising than they, always considered her comfort and likings.
So went things for a fortnight, during which the coming of the others had been put off by Dr. Drew’s absence. One morning Mr. Acton sought Mrs. Brownlow on the beach, where she was sitting with her brood round her, partly reading from a translation, partly telling them the story of Ulysses.
He called her aside, and told her that her husband had telegraphed to him to bid him to carry her the tidings that good old Mrs. Brownlow had been taken from them suddenly in the night, evidently in her sleep.
Carey turned very white, but said only “Oh! why did I go without them?”
It was such an overwhelming shock as left no room for tears. Her first thought, the only one she seemed to have room for, was to get back to her husband by the next train. She would have taken all the children, but that Mrs. Acton insisted, almost commanded, that they should be left under her charge, and reminded her that their father wished them to be out of London; nor did Allen and Robert show any wish to return to a house of mourning, being just