"Sending round the book is exactly the thing I wanted to do, and could not. Mrs Rowland insists that Mrs Enderby ordered it in; and Mrs Grey demands to have it first; and Mr Rowland is certain that you bespoke it before anybody else. I was afraid of the responsibility of acting in so nice a case. An everlasting quarrel might come out of it: so I covered it, and put in the list, all ready to be sent at a moment's warning; and then I amused myself with it while you were away. Now, brother, what will you do?" "The truth of the matter is, that I ordered it in myself, as Mr Rowland says. But Mrs Enderby shall have it at once, because she is ill. It is a fine large type for her; and she will pore over the plates, and forget Deerbrook and all her own ailments, in wondering how the people will get out of the ice." "Do you remember, Margaret," said Hester, "how she looked one summer day,--like a ghost from the grave,--when she came down from her books, and had even forgotten her shawl?" "Oh, about the battle!" cried Margaret, laughing. "What battle?" asked Hope. "An historical one, I suppose, and not that of the Rowlands and Greys. Mrs Enderby is of a higher order than the rest of us Deerbrook people: she gets most of her news, and all her battles, out of history." "Yes: she alighted among us to tell us that such a great, such a wonderful battle had been fought, at a place called Blenheim, by the Duke of Marlborough, who really seemed a surprisingly clever man: it was such a good thought of his to have a swamp at one end of his line, and to put some of his soldiers behind some bushes, so that the enemy could not get at them! and he won the battle." "This book will be the very thing for her," said Margaret. "It is only a pity that it did not come in at Midsummer instead of Christmas. I am afraid she will sympathise so thoroughly that Phoebe will never be able to put on coals enough to warm her." "Nay," said Mr Hope, "it is better as it is. She must be told now, at all events: whereas, if this book came to her at Midsummer, it would chill her whole month of July. She would start every time she looked out of her window, and saw the meadows green." "I hope she is not really very ill," said Hester. "You were thinking the same thought that I was," said her husband, starting up from the sofa. "It is certainly my business to go and see her to-night, if she wishes it. I will step down into the surgery, and learn if there is any message from her." "And if there is not from her, there will be from some one else," said Hester, sorrowfully. "What a cold night for you to go out, and leave this warm room!" Mr Hope laughed as he observed what an innocent speech that was for a surgeon's wife. It was plain that her education in that capacity had not begun. And down he went.