Inexpressibly touching, too, become such pantomimes when the spectator knows the time during which they can be repeated is but short; when he is quite well aware that the days are drawing near on which the child so loved, so idolized, must be laid in the arms of a colder and grimmer nurse to be caressed and hushed to sleep, and pressed close to her mother’s breast, never more, ah! never. And of this fact Mr. Henry was only too confident. The moment he looked in Lally’s face, he knew for a certainty that which Mr. Stewart had vaguely comprehended. The temporary improvement Heather talked of so thankfully, could not deceive his experience. He understood the nature of such varieties too well to be deceived by them; he knew Lally was doomed, and the bright sunny November day, spite of all its delusive light and glitter, could not blind him to the fact that winter was close at hand. For which reason he wished Mr. Stewart had not sent Mrs. Dudley to him. He was not a man to delude with false hopes such as Dr. Chickton had held out, and yet to tell this fond, foolish mother that it was a mere question of time and cure, was beyond his ability. To refuse to treat the hopeless case, to decline ordering vain remedies, would have been almost barbarous, when the poor creature apparently believed the very strength and might of her own love could save her darling from the grasp of a foe too terrible to mention. “It will dawn upon her by degrees,” the surgeon thought, “there is no need for me to tell her;” and so, after a few minutes’ more conversation, he departed, utterly ignoring the fee which Heather would have pressed upon him. He would not see, or feel, or take it; and when at length he could not avoid noticing the shy, puzzled look in her face, he said,— “I do not come professionally, you know; I shall only call when I am in your neighbourhood, and have a quarter of an hour to spare. Good morning!” and he was off, leaving Heather much surprised, and perhaps, also, a little vexed. For it occurred to her Mr. Stewart must have arranged to pay Mr. Henry for his services. After her experience of Dr. Chickton, and his guinea a week, she never imagined any one would take the trouble of attending even Lally gratuitously. The child might be, as Dr. Chickton had remarked, one of the most interesting little creatures he ever beheld; but even supposing Mr. Henry to be of the same opinion (and Heather with all her maternal vanity and affection could not persuade herself the surgeon was anything of the kind), still that opinion need not prevent his taking a fee, since it had not produced a similarly deterrent effect on Dr. Chickton. Altogether, Mrs. Dudley thought she would write to Mr. Stewart on the subject; and, while expressing her obligations for his intended kindness, assure him he was depriving her of a pleasure in not suffering her to pay for anything which might hasten Lally’s recovery.