Seaboard Parish, vol 1 | Page 8

to help me. I told him to take my horse, whose bridle I had
thrown over the latch of a gate, and ride to Oldcastle Hall, and ask Mrs.
Walton to come with the carriage as quickly as possible. "Tell her," I
said, "that her daughter has had a fall from her pony, and is rather
shaken. Ride as hard as you can go."
The man was off in a moment; and there I sat watching my poor child,
for what seemed to be a dreadfully long time before the carriage arrived.
She had come to herself quite, but complained of much pain in her back;
and, to my distress, I found that she could not move herself enough to
make the least change of her position. She evidently tried to keep up as
well as she could; but her face expressed great suffering: it was
dreadfully pale, and looked worn with a month's illness. All my fear
was for her spine.
At length I caught sight of the carriage, coming through the wood as

fast as the road would allow, with the woodman on the box, directing
the coachman. It drew up, and my wife got out. She was as pale as
Constance, but quiet and firm, her features composed almost to
determination. I had never seen her look like that before. She asked no
questions: there was time enough for that afterwards. She had brought
plenty of cushions and pillows, and we did all we could to make an
easy couch for the poor girl; but she moaned dreadfully as we lifted her
into the carriage. We did our best to keep her from being shaken; but
those few miles were the longest journey I ever made in my life.
When we reached home at length, we found that Ethel, or, as we
commonly called her, using the other end of her name, Wynnie--for she
was named after her mother--had got a room on the ground-floor,
usually given to visitors, ready for her sister; and we were glad indeed
not to have to carry her up the stairs. Before my wife left, she had sent
the groom off to Addicehead for both physician and surgeon. A young
man who had settled at Marshmallows as general practitioner a year or
two before, was waiting for us when we arrived. He helped us to lay
her upon a mattress in the position in which she felt the least pain. But
why should I linger over the sorrowful detail? All agreed that the poor
child's spine was seriously injured, and that probably years of suffering
were before her. Everything was done that could be done; but she was
not moved from that room for nine months, during which, though her
pain certainly grew less by degrees, her want of power to move herself
remained almost the same.
When I had left her at last a little composed, with her mother seated by
her bedside, I called my other two daughters--Wynnie, the eldest, and
Dorothy, the youngest, whom I found seated on the floor outside, one
on each side of the door, weeping--into my study, and said to them:
"My darlings, this is very sad; but you must remember that it is God's
will; and as you would both try to bear it cheerfully if it had fallen to
your lot to bear, you must try to be cheerful even when it is your sister's
part to endure."
"O, papa! poor Connie!" cried Dora, and burst into fresh tears.
Wynnie said nothing, but knelt down by my knee, and laid her cheek
upon it.
"Shall I tell you what Constance said to me just before I left the room?"
I asked.

"Please do, papa."
"She whispered, 'You must try to bear it, all of you, as well as you can.
I don't mind it very much, only for you.' So, you see, if you want to
make her comfortable, you must not look gloomy and troubled. Sick
people like to see cheerful faces about them; and I am sure Connie will
not suffer nearly so much if she finds that she does not make the
household gloomy."
This I had learned from being ill myself once or twice since my
marriage. My wife never came near me with a gloomy face, and I had
found that it was quite possible to be sympathetic with those of my
flock who were ill without putting on a long face when I went to see
them. Of course, I do not mean that I could, or that it was desirable that
I should, look cheerful when any were in great pain or mental distress.
But in ordinary conditions of illness a cheerful countenance is as a
message of _all's well_, which may surely be carried into a