Derinzy, her niece, and Mrs. Stothard, was sometimes far from peaceful. Annette was possessed of much better feelings than might have been expected, her antecedents and her present circumstances considered; and she was sometimes successfully appealed to to forego her own will and submit to Mrs. Derinzy's, by a representation of the delicacy of that lady's health, and the ill effect which opposition and the sudden estrangement of her niece would have upon her. Many quarrels were made up in this way, and not the less readily that Annette was curious about the condition of Mrs. Derinzy's health. She never exactly understood the nature of her illness--which did not seem to the girl to interfere with her pursuing the ordinary routine of a lady's life in a secluded country place, and admitted of all the moderate and mildly-flavoured diversions which such conditions of existence could bestow--but which was kept in view constantly by the patient herself and Mrs. Stothard, pleaded in support of the impossibility of any change in the mode of life of the Derinzy family, and substantiated by the periodic visits of Dr. Wainwright. Annette was wholly unconscious that while her own illness was the subject of village gossip, comment, and speculation, no one outside had any notion that Mrs. Derinzy was a chronic sufferer, requiring the expensive and solicitous care of a physician of eminence from London, who was well known in Beachborough to be such, and who was generally supposed to come to see the young lady. She would have been greatly angered had she suspected the existence of such an equivoque; for among the strongest of her feelings were a repugnance to knowing herself to be discussed, and an intense dislike to Dr. Wainwright.