We will speak of it another time ?" But he did not, neither that night, nor for several days and Christian felt only too grateful for his silence.
Sometimes, when, after ringing at intervals of five minutes for some trifling thing, Barker had sent up "Miss Gascoigne's compliments, and the servants couldn't be spared to wait up stairs;" or the cook had apologized for deficiencies in Arthur's dinner by "Miss Gascoigne wanted it for lunch;" and especially when, to her various messages to the nursery, no answer was ever returned--sometimes it had occurred to Christian--gentle as she was, and too fully engrossed to notice small things--that this was not exactly the position Dr.Grey's wife ought to hold in his--and her--own house.

Still she said nothing.

She trusted to time and patience.

And she had such a dread of domestic war--of a family divided against itself.

Besides, some change must come, for in a day or two she would have to resume her ordinary duties, to take her place at the head of her husband's table, and once more endure the long mornings, the weary evenings, to meet and pass over the sharp speeches, the unloving looks, which made the continual atmosphere of the Lodge.
"Oh!" she thought to herself, glancing round upon those four walls of the sick-chamber, which had seen, with much of anxiety, much also of love that never failed, and patience that knew no end, "I could almost say with Arthur, 'It is so nice to be ill!'" He seemed to think the same for on the day he left it he grumbled dreadfully at being carried in Phillis's strong arms--which he had fiercely resisted at first--to the drawing-room, where he was to hold his second tea-party--of aunts.
There they sat waiting, Aunt Maria fond and tearful, Aunt Henrietta grim and severe.