The Trial | Page 9

are delighted,' growled Aubrey.
'So should you be, at the valuable precedent you will afford.'
'I've no notion of being experimented on to prove your theory,' said
Aubrey, still ready for lazy mischief.
For be it known that the roving-tempered Dr. Spencer had been on fire
to volunteer to the Crimean hospitals, and had unwillingly sacrificed
the project, not to Dr. May's conviction that it would be fatal in his
present state of health, but to Ethel's private entreaty that he would not
add to her father's distress in the freshness of Margaret's death, and the
parting with Norman. He had never ceased to mourn over the lost
opportunity, and to cast up to his friend the discoveries he might have
made; while Dr. May declared that if by any strange chance he had
come back at all, he would have been so rabid on improved nursing and
sanatory measures, that there would have been no living with him.
It must be owned that Dr. May was not very sensible to what his friend
called Stoneborough stinks. The place was fairly healthy, and his 'town
councillor's conservatism,' and hatred of change, as well as the
amusement of skirmishing, had always made him the champion of
things as they were; and in the present emergency the battle whether

the enemy had travelled by infection, or was the product of the Pond
Buildings' miasma, was the favourite enlivenment of the disagreeing
doctors, in their brief intervals of repose in the stern conflict which they
were waging with the fever--a conflict in which they had soon to strive
by themselves, for the disease not only seized on young Ward, but on
his father; and till medical assistance was sent from London, they had
the whole town on their hands, and for nearly a week lived without a
night's rest.
The care of the sick was a still greater difficulty. Though Aubrey was
never in danger, and Dr. Spencer's promise of the effects of 'intelligent
nursing' was fully realized, Ethel and Mary were so occupied by him,
that it was a fearful thing to guess how it must fare with those
households where the greater number were laid low, and in want of all
the comforts that could do little.
The clergy worked to the utmost; and a letter of Mr. Wilmot's obtained
the assistance of two ladies from a nursing sisterhood, who not only
worked incredible wonders with their own hands among the poor, but
made efficient nurses of rough girls and stupid old women. Dr. May,
who had at first, in his distrust of innovation, been averse to the
importation--as likely to have no effect but putting nonsense into girls'
heads, and worrying the sick poor--was so entirely conquered, that he
took off his hat to them across the street, importuned them to drink tea
with his daughters, and never came home without dilating on their
merits for the few minutes that intervened between his satisfying
himself about Aubrey and dropping asleep in his chair. The only
counter demonstration he reserved to himself was that he always called
them 'Miss What-d'ye-call-her,' and 'Those gems of women,' instead of
Sister Katherine and Sister Frances.
CHAPTER II

Good words are silver, but good deeds are gold. Cecil and Mary
'It has been a very good day, papa; he has enjoyed all his meals, indeed

was quite ravenous. He is asleep now, and looks as comfortable as
possible,' said Ethel, five weeks after Aubrey's illness had begun.
'Thank God for that, and all His mercy to us, Ethel;' and the long sigh,
the kiss, and dewy eyes, would have told her that there had been more
to exhaust him than his twelve hours' toil, even had she not partly
known what weighed him down.
'Poor things!' she said.
'Both gone, Ethel, both! both!' and as he entered the drawing-room, he
threw himself back in his chair, and gasped with the long- restrained
feeling.
'Both!' she exclaimed. 'You don't mean that Leonard--'
'No, Ethel, his mother! Poor children, poor children!'
'Mrs. Ward! I thought she had only been taken ill yesterday evening.'
'She only then gave way--but she never had any constitution--she was
done up with nursing--nothing to fall back on--sudden collapse and
prostration--and that poor girl, called every way at once, fancied her
asleep, and took no alarm till I came in this morning and found her
pulse all but gone. We have been pouring down stimulants all day, but
there was no rousing her, and she was gone the first.'
'And Mr. Ward--did he know it?'
'I thought so from the way he looked at me; but speech had long been
lost, and that throat was dreadful suffering. Well, "In their death they
were not divided."'
He shaded his eyes with his hand; and Ethel,