Mr. Gray bowed very low, and went very red; Mr. Lathom said something which we none of us heard, but which was, I think, some remonstrance against the course he was, as it were, compelled to take.  Lady Ludlow, however, took no notice of his murmur, but sat in an attitude of polite expectancy; and as we turned off on our walk, I saw Mr. Lathom getting into the coach with the air of a whipped hound.  I must say, considering my lady’s feeling, I did not envy him his ride—­though, I believe, he was quite in the right as to the object of the ride being illegal.

Our walk home was very dull.  We had no fears; and would far rather have been without the awkward, blushing young man, into which Mr. Gray had sunk.  At every stile he hesitated,—­sometimes he half got over it, thinking that he could assist us better in that way; then he would turn back unwilling to go before ladies.  He had no ease of manner, as my lady once said of him, though on any occasion of duty, he had an immense deal of dignity.

CHAPTER III.

As far as I can remember, it was very soon after this that I first began to have the pain in my hip, which has ended in making me a cripple for life.  I hardly recollect more than one walk after our return under Mr. Gray’s escort from Mr. Lathom’s.  Indeed, at the time, I was not without suspicions (which I never named) that the beginning of all the mischief was a great jump I had taken from the top of one of the stiles on that very occasion.

Well, it is a long while ago, and God disposes of us all, and I am not going to tire you out with telling you how I thought and felt, and how, when I saw what my life was to be, I could hardly bring myself to be patient, but rather wished to die at once.  You can every one of you think for yourselves what becoming all at once useless and unable to move, and by-and-by growing hopeless of cure, and feeling that one must be a burden to some one all one’s life long, would be to an active, wilful, strong girl of seventeen, anxious to get on in the world, so as, if possible, to help her brothers and sisters.  So I shall only say, that one among the blessings which arose out of what seemed at the time a great, black sorrow was, that Lady Ludlow for many years took me, as it were, into her own especial charge; and now, as I lie still and alone in my old age, it is such a pleasure to think of her!

Mrs. Medlicott was great as a nurse, and I am sure I can never be grateful enough to her memory for all her kindness.  But she was puzzled to know how to manage me in other ways.  I used to have long, hard fits of crying; and, thinking that I ought to go home—­and yet what could they do with me there?—­and a hundred and fifty other anxious thoughts, some of which I could tell to Mrs. Medlicott, and others I could not.  Her way of comforting me was hurrying away for some kind of tempting or strengthening food—­a basin of melted calves-foot jelly was, I am sure she thought, a cure for every woe.