CHAPTER IX.

BERNARDINE PREACHES.


AFTER this, scarcely a day passed but Bernardine went to see Mr. Reffold.
The most inexperienced eye could have known that he was becoming rapidly
worse. Marie, the chambermaid, knew it, and spoke of it frequently to
Bernardine.

"The poor lonely fellow!" she said, time after time.

Every one, except Mrs. Reffold, seemed to recognize that Mr. Reffold's
days were numbered. Either she did not or would not understand. She made
no alteration in the disposal of her time: sledging parties and skating
picnics were the order of the day; she was thoroughly pleased with
herself, and received the attentions of her admirers as a matter of
course. The Petershof climate had got into her head; and it is a
well-known fact that this glorious air has the effect on some people of
banishing from their minds all inconvenient notions of duty and devotion,
and all memory of the special object of their sojourn in Petershof. The
coolness and calmness with which such people ignore their
responsibilities, or allow strangers to assume them, would be an
occasion for humour, if it were not an opportunity for indignation:
though indeed it would take a very exceptionally sober-minded spectator
not to get some fun out of the blissful self-satisfaction and
unconsciousness which characterize the most negligent of 'caretakers.'

Mrs. Reffold was not the only sinner in this respect. It would have been
interesting to get together a tea-party of invalids alone, and set the