My mistress took this ill news more quietly than my master.  He was a big, fat, odd sort of elderly man, who kept birds and white mice, and spoke to them as if they were so many Christian children.  He seemed terribly cut up by what had happened.  “Ah! poor Lady Glyde! poor dear Lady Glyde!” he says, and went stalking about, wringing his fat hands more like a play-actor than a gentleman.  For one question my mistress asked the doctor about the lady’s chances of getting round, he asked a good fifty at least.  I declare he quite tormented us all, and when he was quiet at last, out he went into the bit of back garden, picking trumpery little nosegays, and asking me to take them upstairs and make the sick-room look pretty with them.  As if that did any good.  I think he must have been, at times, a little soft in his head.  But he was not a bad master—­he had a monstrous civil tongue of his own, and a jolly, easy, coaxing way with him.  I liked him a deal better than my mistress.  She was a hard one, if ever there was a hard one yet.

Towards night-time the lady roused up a little.  She had been so wearied out, before that, by the convulsions, that she never stirred hand or foot, or spoke a word to anybody.  She moved in the bed now, and stared about her at the room and us in it.  She must have been a nice-looking lady when well, with light hair, and blue eyes and all that.  Her rest was troubled at night—­at least so I heard from my mistress, who sat up alone with her.  I only went in once before going to bed to see if I could be of any use, and then she was talking to herself in a confused, rambling manner.  She seemed to want sadly to speak to somebody who was absent from her somewhere.  I couldn’t catch the name the first time, and the second time master knocked at the door, with his regular mouthful of questions, and another of his trumpery nosegays.

When I went in early the next morning, the lady was clean worn out again, and lay in a kind of faint sleep.  Mr. Goodricke brought his partner, Mr. Garth, with him to advise.  They said she must not be disturbed out of her rest on any account.  They asked my mistress many questions, at the other end of the room, about what the lady’s health had been in past times, and who had attended her, and whether she had ever suffered much and long together under distress of mind.  I remember my mistress said “Yes” to that last question.  And Mr. Goodricke looked at Mr. Garth, and shook his head; and Mr. Garth looked at Mr. Goodricke, and shook his head.  They seemed to think that the distress might have something to do with the mischief at the lady’s heart.  She was but a frail thing to look at, poor creature!  Very little strength at any time, I should say—­very little strength.

Later on the same morning, when she woke, the lady took a sudden turn, and got seemingly a great deal better.  I was not let in again to see her, no more was the housemaid, for the reason that she was not to be disturbed by strangers.  What I heard of her being better was through my master.  He was in wonderful good spirits about the change, and looked in at the kitchen window from the garden, with his great big curly-brimmed white hat on, to go out.