Gascoigne and Miss Grey.

Poor Aunt Maria, in her regular daily visit--she dared venture no
more--to the sick-room door, would sometimes say hesitatingly, "My
dear, how well you look still? You are sure you are not breaking down?"
And Christian, grateful for the only kindly woman's face she ever saw
near her, would respond with a smile--sometimes with a kiss, which
always alarmed Aunt Maria exceedingly.

As for Aunt Henrietta, she never came at all. Since the evening when
she had marched out of the room in high dudgeon, she had taken not
the smallest notice of the sick boy. His life or death was apparently of
far less moment to her than her own offended dignity. Had he been left
in her sole charge, she would doubtless have done her duty to him but
to stand by and see another doing it? No! a thousand times no! That
part, insignificant in itself, and yet often one of the very sweetest and
most useful in life's harmonies, familiarly called "second fiddle," was a
part impossible to be played by Miss Gascoigne.

What she did or said--though probably the first was little and the other
a great deal--was happily unknown to Mrs. Grey. Her one duty lay
clear before her, to save her poor boy's life, if any human means could
do it. And sometimes, when she saw the agony and anxiety in his
father's face, Christian felt a wild joy in spending herself and being
spent, even to the last extremity, if by such means she could repay to
her most good and tender husband that never-counted, unaccountable
debt of love, which nothing ever does pay except return in kind.

Concerning Arthur himself, the matter was simple enough now. All his
fractiousness, restlessness, and innumerable wants were easy to put up