THE SICK CHAMBER.
"Draw aside the curtain, Rose," said Adeline de Castella, feebly. "The
sun has passed."
You can take a look at her as she lies. Some few weeks have passed
since the sad occurence just related, but there is no visible
improvement in her appearance. Her face is wan, thinner than it was
then, and dark circles have formed round her eyes. There had been no
recurrence of the alarming symptoms from the lungs: indeed, the hurt
seemed to have healed itself immediately; but a great deal of fever
had supervened, and this had left her in a sad state of weakness. The
doctors seemed a little puzzled at this condition of fever and its
continuance; some of those around her were not, but knew it for the
result of her unhappy state of mind. That consumption had set its seal
upon her, there was no longer any doubt, but it was thought probable
the disease might linger in its progress.
Rose and Mary were with her still. Adeline could not bear to hear of
their leaving. "They must spare you to me until the end," she said,
alluding to their friends, and the young ladies seemed quite willing
to accept the position. They were her chief companions; the French
nurse remained, but her office was partly a sinecure, and just now she
was occupied with Madame de Beaufoy, who was confined to her bed with
illness. Signor de Castella was in Paris on business--he always seemed
to have business on hand, but no one could ever quite find out what it
was. Agnes de Beaufoy sat much with her mother. Madame de Castella was
almost as ill as Adeline; grieving, fretting, repining continually.
She paid frequent visits to Adeline's room, but seldom stayed in it
long, for she was apt to suffer her feelings to get ahead, and to
become hysterical. A frequent visitor to it was Father Marc; the most
cheerful, chatty, pleasant of all. He brought her no end of
entertaining anecdotes of the neighbourhood, and sometimes succeeded
in winning a smile from her lips. He never entered with her upon
religious topics, so far as the two young ladies saw or heard; never
appeared to anticipate that the end of life's race was entered upon.
Rose had put aside much of her giddy vanity, and they all loved her.
She was in bitter repentance for her unnecessary and exaggerated
revelations touching Sarah Beauclerc;--_there_, in her knowledge of
that, lay the keenest sting of Adeline's misery. Adeline remained
silent as to her inward life, silent as the grave; but something had
been gathered of it. She had more than once fallen into a sort of
delirium--I don't know any better name for it; partly sleep, partly a
talking and waking dream, and some painful thoughts had been spoken in
it. It always occurred at the dusk of evening, and Adeline herself
seemed unconscious of it when she woke up to reality. You may meet
with such a case yourselves; when you do, suspect the patient's state
of alarming bodily weakness.
Adeline's former chamber had been changed for one with a southern
aspect. The bed was in a recess, as is customary in the country, or
rather in a smaller room, for there were windows and two doors in it.
A large cheerful chamber, or sitting-room, the chief, the windows
lofty, the fireplace handsome, the little Turkey-carpet mats,
scattered on the polished floor, of bright colours. Adeline's sofa
just now faced the windows; it was light, and could be turned easily
any way on its firm castors; Madame de Castella leaned back in an
easy-chair, nearly as pale and worn as Adeline; Mary Carr was working;
Rose listlessly turned over the leaves of one of the pretty books
lying on the large round table.
"Draw aside the curtain, Rose," Adeline said. "The sun has passed."
Rose drew it aside. An hour or so before, the weak, watery sun had
come forth from behind the lowering grey clouds and sent his beams
straight into Adeline's eyes, so they had shut him out. Diminished in
force though the rays were, they were yet too bright for the invalid's
sight. Surely, when you come to think of it, there was a singular
affinity between the weather and Adeline's health and happiness. Cold,
wet, boisterous, and gloomy had it been in the spring, during the time
of her long illness, up to the period, within a few days, of her
arrival at Beaufoy and commencing intimacy with Frederick St. John;
warm, brilliant and beautiful it was all through the months of that
intimacy; but with its abrupt termination, the very day subsequent to
the miserable one of his departure and of Adeline's dangerous
accident, it had abruptly changed, and become cold, wet, dreary again.
Weeks, as you have heard, had elapsed since, and the weather still
wore the same gloomy aspect, in which there seemed no prospect of
amendment on this side winter. A feeling of awe, almost of
superstition, would creep over Mary Carr, as she sat by Adeline's
bedside in the dim evenings, listening to the moaning, sighing wind,
as it swept round the unprotected château and shook off the leaves
from the nearly bare trees on the western side. It sounded so like a
dirge for the dying girl who was passing from them! The watchers would
look up with a shiver, and say how dreary it was, this gloomy weather,
and wish it would change, forgetting that the sweetest summer's day,
the brightest skies, cannot bring joy to a house where joy exists not,
or renew the peace of a heart from which hope has flown. Very fanciful
all this, no doubt, you will say; what has the weather to do with
events in this busy world of ours? Nothing, of course. Still, it had
been a curious year; winter, summer, and now winter again; but neither
spring nor autumn.
As Rose drew aside the curtain, humming a scrap of a song at the same
time, for she was always gay, and nothing could take it out of her,
Adeline left the sofa where she had been lying, and sat down near the
fire in any easy-chair of white dimity.
"Mamma," she said, catching sight of Madame de Castella's lifeless,
sickly aspect, "why do you not go out? It is not raining today, and
the fresh air would do you good."
"Oh, Adeline," sighed the unhappy mother, "nothing will do me good
while I see you as you are."
"Now, Madame de Castella!" remonstrated Rose. "You persist in taking a
wrong view of things! Adeline is getting better and stronger every
day."
True, in a degree. But would it last? Perhaps Rose herself, in her
inmost heart, knew that it would not. Madame de Castella rose
abruptly, and quitted the room; and Rose gave a shrug to her pretty
shoulders. There were times, as she privately confided to Mary Carr,
when she could have shaken Madame for her line of conduct. She vented
her anger just now on the pillow behind Adeline's back, knocking it
unmercifully, under the plea of smoothing it to comfort.
"I'm putting it straight for you, Adeline."
"No matter, dear Rose. It will do very well Thank you all the same."
"I wish you'd taste this jelly; it's delicious."
"But I don't care for it; I don't care to eat," was the apathetic
reply.
"Shall I read to you?" asked Rose.
"As you will, dear Rose; it seems all one to me. But thank you very
much."
Thus had she been all along; thus she continued. Quiet, passive,
grateful for their cares, but showing no interest in any earthly
thing. No tidings whatever had been heard of Mr. St. John since he
left; what quarter of the known world he might be in, whether or not
he was aware of Adeline's state, they could not conjecture. It was
assumed that he was in London; Adeline, for one, never thought of
doubting it. All this while, and not a single remembrance from him!
Rose went to the table, turned over the books collected there, and
took up a volume of Tennyson.
"Not that," said Adeline, quickly glancing up with a faint colour.
"Something else."
No, not that. _He_ had given her the book, and been accustomed to read
it to her. How could she bear to hear it read by another?
Rose tried again: Béranger. "That won't do," she said. "A pretty laugh
you would have at my French accent!"
"Your accent is not a bad one, Rose."
"It may pass in conversation. But to read poetry aloud in any language
but one's own, is---- What's this?" continued Rose, interrupting
herself as she opened another volume; which she as quickly dropped
again. It was Bulwer's "Pilgrims of the Rhine."
"That will do as well as another," said Adeline.
"No," shortly answered Rose, avoiding the book with a gesture that was
half a shrug and half a shudder. Adeline stretched out her hand and
drew her near, speaking in a low murmuring tone.
"You fear to remind me of myself, Rose, in telling of Gertrude.
Indeed, there is no analogy to be traced between the cases," she
added, with a bitter smile, "save in the nature of the disease; and
that we must both die. One might envy _her_ fate."
"I don't like the book," persisted Rose.
"I do," said Adeline. "One tale in it I could never be tired of. I
forget its title, but it begins, 'The angels strung their harps in
Heaven, and the----'"
"I know," interrupted Rose, rapidly turning over the pages. "Here it
is. 'The Soul in Purgatory; or, Love stronger than Death.' It is a
tale of woman's enduring love."
"_And its reward_," sighed Adeline. "Read it. It is very short."
Rose began her reading. It was quite impossible to tell whether
Adeline listened or not: she sat silent, in her chair, her hand over
her face; and, when it was over, she remained in the same position,
making no comment, till the nurse came in to give the medicine.
"I'm not wanted in there just now," said she, with that freedom of
manner which is so characteristic of the dependents in a French
family, but which is never offensive, or even borders on disrespect;
"so I'll sit here a bit."
"You can wheel the sofa nearer to the fire, nurse," said Adeline.
It was done, and Adeline lay down upon it. Rose began another tale,
and read till dusk.
"Shall I stir the fire into a blaze, Adeline, and finish it now; or
wait until candle-light?"
There came no answer. Mary Carr stole forward and bent over Adeline.
She had fallen asleep. Stay: not sleep; but into one of those
restless, dreamy stupors akin to it. The thought had more than once
crossed them--did that Odesque doctor, who chiefly saw to the
medicine, put laudanum in it, and were these feverish wanderings the
result? The uncertain light of the wood fire played fitfully upon
Adeline's face, revealing its extreme beauty of feature and its
deathly paleness. Rose closed her book; and Mary left Adeline's sofa,
and stood looking through the window on the dreary night. The nurse,
who had dropped into a doze herself, soothed by the monotonous and
incomprehensible tones of the foreign tongue, rose and went downstairs
for some wood.
Mary Carr had laid her finger with a warning gesture on Rose Darling's
arm, for sounds were heard from Adeline. Turning from the darkened
window where they had been holding a whispered colloquy, they held
their breath to listen. Very distinct were the words in the silence of
the room:
"Don't say it! don't say it!" murmured Adeline. "I tell you there is
no hope. He has been gone too long: one--two--three--four--do you
think I have not counted the weeks?--Why does he not come?--Why does
he not write?--What's this? My letters? thrust back upon me with scorn
and insult!--What is he whispering to Sarah Beauclerc? Oh, mercy!
mercy!"
The nurse re-entered the room, her arms laden with wood. By some
mishap she let a log fall to the floor, and the noise aroused Adeline.
Rose ran to the sofa, her eyes full of tears.
"Oh, Adeline," she sighed, leaning over her, "you should not take it
so heavily to heart. If things were at an end between you and Mr. St.
John, there was something noble rather than the contrary in his
returning you your letters. Indeed, we have always seen him honourable
in all he does. Another might have kept them--have boasted of
them--have shown them to the world. I only wish," broke off Rose,
going from Adeline's affairs to her own, in the most unceremonious
way, "that I could get back all the love-letters I have written! What
a heap there'd be of them!"
"What do you mean?" demanded Adeline, sitting up on the sofa in her
alarm. "Have I been saying anything in my sleep?"
"Not much--only a few words," said Mary Carr, stepping forward and
speaking in a calm, soothing tone, a very contrast to Rose's excited
one. "But we can see how it is about Mr. St. John, Adeline. He left in
ill-feeling, and the inward grief is killing you by inches. If your
mind were at rest, time might restore you to health; but, as it is,
you are giving yourself no chance of life."
"There is no chance for me," she answered; "you know it. If I were
happy as I once was, as I once thought I should be; if I were even
married to Mr. St. John, there would be no chance of prolonged life
for me; none."
Mary Carr did know it; but she strove to soothe her still.
"I might have expected all that has happened to me," smiled Adeline,
trying to turn the subject to a jest, the first approach to voluntary
smile or jest they had marked on her lips. "Do you remember your
words, Rose, on that notable first of January, my ball-night--that
some ill-fate was inevitably in store for me?"
"Rubbish!" said Rose. "I was an idiot, and a double idiot: and I don't
remember it."
But Rose did remember it, all too vividly. She remembered how Adeline
had laughed in ridicule, had spurned her words, then; in her
summer-tide of pride and beauty. It was winter with her now!
There could be no further erroneous opinions on the point. Physically,
she was dying of consumption, as a matter of course, and as the
doctors said: but was she not just as much dying of a broken heart?
The cruel pain was ever torturing her: though her lungs had been
strong and healthy, it might have worked its work.
I hardly know how to continue this portion of the history, and feel a
great temptation to make a leap at once to its close. Who cares to
read of the daily life of a sick-chamber? There is so little variation
in it: there was so little in hers. Adeline better or worse; the
visits of the doctors, and their opinions; a change in her medicine,
pills for mixture, or mixture for pills; and there you have about the
whole history. Which medicine, by the way, was ordered by the English
physician. A French one never gives any. He would not prescribe one
dose, where the English would choke you with five hundred. It is true.
Pills, powders, mixture; mixture, powders, pills: five hundred at the
very least, where a Frenchman would give none. Warm baths and fasting
in abundance they order, but no medicine. They are uncommonly free
with the lancet, however; with leeches; with anything else that draws
blood. The first year Eleanor Seymour (if you have not forgotten her)
was at school at Madame de Nino's, an illness broke out amidst the
pupils, and the school medical attendant was sent for. It was this
very Dr. Dorré, now attending Adeline de Castella. Five or six of the
younger girls seemed heavy and feverish, and there were signs of an
eruption on the skin. Monsieur le docteur thought it would turn out to
be measles or scarlatina, he could not yet pronounce which; and he
ordered them to bed and to take a few quarts of eau sucrée: he then
sent for the rest of the pupils one by one, and bled them all
round.[1] "A simple measure of precaution," he said to Madame.
-------------------------------
[1] A fact, in all its details.
-------------------------------
If this history of the sick-chamber is to be continued, we must borrow
some extracts from the diary of Mary Carr. A good thing she kept one:
otherwise there would have been little record of this earlier period
in the closing scenes of life.
Meanwhile it may be as well to mention that a sort of wild wish--in
its fervour it could be called little else--had taken hold of Adeline:
she wanted to return to Belport. Every one at first opposed it. The
cold would be greater in the seaport town than it was at Beaufoy; and
the journey might do her harm. There appeared to be only one
consideration in its favour; but that was a strong one: they would be
on the spot with the doctors. She seemed to get better and stronger.
Signor de Castella came home and was astonished at the improvement.
Perhaps it was what he had not looked for.
Extract From The Diary Of Mary Carr.
_Nov. 3rd_.--What can make her so anxious to return to Belport? She is
growing feverish about it, and the Signor and Madame see that she is.
Rose has been offering to bet me a pair of gloves that it will end in
our going. I hope it will. This house seems to be dedicated to
illness. Madame de Beaufoy does not improve, and one of the servants
has taken gastric fever.
Belport, Belport! It is the one wish of her existence; the theme of
her daily prayer. Has she an idea that she may there be in the way of
hearing of _him_, perhaps of seeing him? Or is it that she would bid
adieu to this place, hoping to bid adieu at the same time to its
remembrances?
She is so much better! She comes downstairs now, dressed as she used
to be, except the hair. It is braided under a pretty little lace cap:
the French are such people for keeping the head warm! Often on her
shoulders she wears a light cashmere shawl: the one she put on the
night when she attempted to go away with Mr. St. John. "I wonder if
she thinks of it?" I said yesterday to Rose. "What a donkey you are!"
was the complimentary reply: "as if she did not think of that
miserable night and its mishaps continually!"
We now know that Mr. St. John is in London. In looking over the
_Times_--which comes regularly to Madame de Beaufoy--I saw his name
amidst a host of others, as having attended a public meeting:
Frederick St. John, Esq., of Castle Wafer. I put the paper into
Adeline's hand, pointing to the list, and then quitted the room. On my
return to it the journal was lying on the table, and her face was
buried amidst the cushions of the armchair.
Is this improvement to turn out a deceitful one? It might not, but for
the ever-restless, agitated mind. A calm without, a torrent within!
The weakness is no longer apparent; the cough is nearly gone. But she
is inert and indifferent as ever; buried within herself. This
apparently languid apathy, this total indifference to life and its
daily concerns, is set down by her friends to bodily weakness; and so
they let it remain unchecked and unaroused, and she indulges,
unmolested, in all the bitter feelings of a breaking heart.
6_th_.--These last few fine days have afforded the pretext for
complying with Adeline's wish, and here we are, once more, at Belport,
she wonderfully improved. Still better, still better! for how long?
Rose has resumed her wild gaiety of spirits, and says she will sing a
_Te Deum_ for having left the dreary old château and its ghosts behind
us.
A bed has been placed on the first-floor for Adeline, in the back
drawing-room. This is better; for she can now reach the front
drawing-room, where we sit, without being exposed to the cold air of
the staircase. And should she be confined to her room at the last, as
may be expected, it will be more convenient for the servants; and
indeed in all respects.
7_th_.--Madame de Nino called today, bringing two of the elder girls.
Adeline asked them innumerable questions about the school, and seemed
really awakened to interest. Many other friends have also called;
compared with the gloomy solitude of the château, each day since our
arrival has been like a levee. The doctors apparently see no
impropriety in this, for they don't forbid it. _I_ think Adeline is
better for it: she has not the leisure to brood so entirely over the
past. She is still silent on the subject of her misery, never hinting
at it. Mr. St. John's name is not mentioned by any one, and the scenes
and events of the last six months might be a dream, for all the
allusion ever made to them. Never was she so beautiful as she is now;
delicate and fragile of course, but that is a great charm in woman's
loveliness. Her features are more than ever conspicuous for their
exquisite contour, her soft brown eyes are of a sweeter sadness, her
cheeks glow with a transparent rose colour. Visitors look at her with
astonishment, almost question the fact of her late dangerous illness,
and say she is getting well. But there is no exertion: listless and
inanimate she sits, or lies, her trembling, fevered hands holding one
or other of the English journals--looking in them for a name that she
never finds.
Yesterday Rose was reading to her in a volume of Shelley, when a
letter from England was brought in, its superscription in the
handwriting of Mrs. Darling. Adeline looked up, eager and flushed,
signing to Rose to open it. Madame de Castella has stared in her
ladylike way at this betrayed emotion whenever letters come for Rose.
_We_ understand it: and Rose always reads them to her. The Darlings
are in London, know people that Mr. St. John knows, and Adeline thinks
there may be a chance that his name will be mentioned in these
letters. "The letter will keep," said Rose, glancing cursorily into
it; and she laid it down and resumed her book.
"I love, but I believe in love no more,
I feel desire, but hope not. Oh, from Sleep
Most vainly must my weary brain implore
Its long-lost flattery now: I wake to weep,
And sit, the long day, gnawing through the core
Of my bitter heart----"
I looked up at her, involuntarily, it was so applicable; Rose also
made a momentary stop, and her glance wandered in the same direction.
Adeline's eyes met ours. It was one of those awkward moments that will
happen to all; and the flush on Adeline's cheek deepened to crimson.
It was very applicable:
"I wake to weep,
And sit, the long day, gnawing through the core
Of my bitter heart."
Alas! alas!
Rose's letter contained ill news of the Darling family. Her quick
sight saw what it was, and she hastened to put the letter up, not
caring to speak of it at once to Adeline. Really she is growing more
cautious than she used to be! That poor little child, the heir, in
whose life was bound up so much of worldly prosperity, is dead: he
died more than a week ago. Rose is in a state of what she is pleased
to call "dumps." Firstly, for the child's own sake: she never saw him
but once, this summer at Belport, but took a real liking for the
little fellow; secondly, because Rose has orders to put herself into
mourning. If Rose hates one thing in this world more than another, it
is a black bonnet.
Adeline was standing by the fire today when the English physician
came in. He was struck with the improvement in her looks. "You are
cheating us all," he said. "We shall have a wedding yet."
"Or a funeral, doctor," quietly answered Adeline.
"I speak as I think," he seriously said. "I do believe that now there
is great hope of your recovery. If we could but get you to the South!"
"Adeline," I exclaimed, as the physician went out, and she and I were
alone, "you heard what he said. Those words were worth a king's
ransom."
"They were not worth a serfs," was her reply. "I appreciate his
motives. He imagines that the grave must of necessity be a bitter and
terrible prospect, and is willing to cheer me with hopes, whether they
prove true or false: as all doctors do; it is in their trade. But he
knows perfectly well that I must die."
"How calmly you speak! One would think you _coveted_ the approach of
death!"
"Well--I don't know that I regret it."
"Has life no longer a charm for you? Oh, that you had never met
Frederick St. John!"
"Don't say so! He came to me in mercy."
A burst of tears succeeded to the words, startling me nearly out of my
senses.
"There! that's your fault," she cried, with a wretched attempt at
gaiety. "In talking of regret, you made me think of my dear papa and
mamma. Their grief will be dreadful."
"Oh, Adeline, _don't_ try to turn it off in this way," I stammered,
not knowing what to say, and horribly vexed with myself. "What do you
mean--that he came to you in mercy with this wretchedness upon you,
the crushed spirit, the breaking heart? I see what you go through day
by day, night by night. Is there any cessation to the pain? Is it not
as one never-ending anguish?"
Adeline was strangely excited; her eyes glistening, her cheeks a
burning crimson, and her white, fragile, feverish hands fastening upon
mine.
"It is all you say," she whispered. "And now he is with another!"
"I can understand the misery _that_ thought brings."
"No, you can't. If my heart were laid bare before you, and you saw the
wretchedness there as it really is, it would appear to you all as the
mania of one insane; and to him as to the rest."
"And yet you say this has come to you in mercy!"
"It has--it has. I see it all now. How else should I have been
reconciled to die? The germs of consumption must have been in me from
the first," she concluded, after a pause. "You schoolgirls used to
tell me I inherited all the English characteristics; and consumption,
I suppose, made one of them."
9_th_.--Miss de Beauroy is here for a day or two, and we had a quiet
little soirée yesterday evening. Aunt Agnes, in the plentitude of her
delight at the improvement visible in Adeline, limped down, poor lady,
in a splendid canary-coloured silk gown, all standing on end with
richness. Who should come in unexpectedly after tea, but Monsieur le
Comte le Coq de Monty! (I do love, after the fashion of the good Vicar
of Wakefield, to give that whole name--_I_, not Miss Carr). Business
with the Sous-Préfet brought him to Belport. He inquired very _mal à
propos_, whether we had recently seen or heard of Mr. St. John; and
while we were opening our mouths, deliberating what to say, Rose,
always apt and ready, took upon herself evasively to answer that he
was in England, at Castle Wafer. Adeline's face was turned away, but
the rest of the family looked glum enough. De Monty, very
unconsciously, but not the less out of time and tune, entered into a
flowery oration in praise of Mr. St. John, saying he was the most
attractive man he ever came in contact with; which, considering St.
John is an Englishman, and de Monty French, was very great praise
indeed.
She looked so lovely this morning, as she sat in the great chair, that
I could not forbear an exclamation. But it is all the same to her,
admiration and indifference; nothing arouses her from that dreamy
apathy.
"Ours is a handsome family," she answered. "See how good-looking papa
is! I have inherited his features."
Not the slightest sign of gratified vanity as she spoke. All _that_
had passed away with Frederick St. John.
That Signor de Castella was excessively handsome, I did not deny; but
she was much more so.
"The complexion makes a difference," said Adeline, in answer. "Papa is
pale; sallow you may term it, and in complexion I am like mamma. She
owes hers, no doubt, to her English origin. You never saw a
Frenchwoman with that marvellous complexion, at once brilliant and
delicate."
I marvelled at her wondrous indifference. "You were formerly
sufficiently conscious of your beauty, Adeline; you seem strangely
callous to it now."
"I have outlived many feelings that were once strong within me. Vanity
now for _me!_"
"Outlived? It is a remarkable term for one of your age."
"It is appropriate," she rejoined, quickly. "In the last few months I
have aged years."
"Can this be?"
"You have read of hair turning grey in a single night," she whispered;
"it was thus with my feelings. _They_ became grey. I was in a dream so
blissful that the earth to me was as one universal paradise; and I
awoke to reality. That awaking added the age of a whole life to my
heart."
"I cannot understand this," I said. And I really can't.
"I hope you never will. Self-experience alone could enlighten you,
nothing else; not all the books and arguments in the world."
"You allude to the time when Mr. St. John went away in anger."
"Not so," she murmured, scarcely above her breath. "When I learnt that
he loved another."
"I think it is fallacy, that idea of yours, Adeline," I said,
determined to dispute it for her own sake. "How could he have cared
for Sarah Beauclerc and for you at the same time? He could not love
you both."
"No, he could not," she said, a vivid, painful flush rising to her
cheeks. "But he knew her first, and he is with her now. Can you draw
no deduction?"
"We don't know where he is," I said. "Was your sister good-looking,
Adeline?"
"Maria was beautiful," she replied. "We were much alike, resembling
papa in feature, and mamma in figure and complexion."
"And she also died of consumption. What an insidious disease it is!
How it seems to cling to particular families!"
"What is running in your head now, Mary? Maria died of scarlet fever.
She was delicate as a child, and I believe they feared she might
become consumptive. I don't know what grounds they had to judge by:
perhaps little other than her fragile loveliness."
"If consumption is fond of attacking great beauties, perhaps Rose will
go off in one."
"Rose!" answered Adeline--and there was a smile on her lip--"if Rose
goes off in anything, it will be in a coach-and-four with white
favours."
And so the days pass on; Adeline, I fear, not really better. To look
at her, she is well--well, and very lovely; but so she was before. If
they could but get her to the South! But with this winter weather it
is impossible: the doctors say she would die on the road. If they had
but taken advantage, while they might have done it, of the glorious
summer weather! If!--if!--if! These "ifs" follow too many of us
through life; as they may henceforth follow the Signor and Madame de
Castella.