'So, here you are at last!' cried he, trying to smile while he sobbed audibly, 'and a pretty figure you make, don't you?--But we have you again, and we will not part with you so soon, I can tell you (almost starting as the faint but rapid pulse met his fingers)--that is, I mean,' added he, 'unless it please God.' Mrs Mowbray and Savanna, during this speech, gazed on his countenance in breathless anxiety, and read in it a confirmation of their fears. 'But who's afraid?' cried the doctor, forcing a laugh, while his tone and his looks expressed the extreme of apprehension, and his laugh ended in a sob. Mrs Mowbray turned away in a sort of desperate silence; but the mulatto still kept her penetrating eye fixed upon him, and with a look so full of woe! 'I'll trouble you, mistress, to take those formidable eyes of yours off my face,' cried the doctor pettishly; 'for I can't stand their inquiry!--But who the devil are you?' 'She is my nurse, my consoler, and my friend,' said Adeline. 'Then she is mine of course,' cried the doctor, 'though she has a terrible stare with her eyes:--but give me your hand, mistress. What is your name?' 'Me be name Savanna,' replied the mulatto; 'and me die and live wid my dear mistress,' she added, bursting into tears. 'Pshaw!' cried the doctor, 'I can't bear this--here I came as a physician, and these blubberers melt me down into an old woman. Adeline, I must order all these people out of the room, and have you to myself, or I can do nothing.' He was obeyed; and on inquiring into all Adeline's symptoms, he found little to hope and every thing to fear--'But your mind is relieved, and you have youth on your side; and who knows what good air, good food, and good nurses may do for you!' 'Not to mention a good physician,' added Adeline, smiling, 'and a good friend in that physician.' 'This it be to have money,' said Savanna, as she saw the various things prepared and made to tempt Adeline's weak appetite:--'poor Savanna mean as well--her heart make all these, but her hand want power.' During this state of alarming suspense Mrs Pemberton was hourly expected, as she had written word that she had traced Adeline into Lancashire, and suspected that she was in her mother's neighbourhood.--It may be supposed that Mrs Mowbray, Adeline, and Savanna, looked forward to her arrival with eager impatience; but not so Dr Norberry--he said that no doubt she was a very good sort of woman, but that he did not like pretensions to righteousness over much, and had a particular aversion to a piece of formal drab-coloured morality.