Mr. Maitland, the medical friend of the family, confirmed the opinion which Edward had said their physician in India had given of his sister's state of health. He did not, he said, consider her liable to serious illness, or of a constitution that would not endure; but that he feared it would be some years before she knew the blessing of really good health, and be constantly subject to that lassitude, severe headache, and the depression of the whole system thence proceeding, which must prevent the liveliness and quickness of acquirement natural to most children. He thought the evil had been very greatly increased by want of sufficient care in early years, and the unwholesome climate in which she had so long lived, that he wondered her mother had not been advised to send her over to England, adding, with a smile, he was quite sure Mrs. Hamilton would not have refused the charge, anxious as it might have been. And earnestly, not only on account of the child's physical but mental health, did Mrs. Hamilton wish that such had been the case, and that she had had the care of her niece from earliest infancy; and how much more would she have wished this, had she known that Mrs. Fortescue had really been advised to do with Ellen as Mr. Maitland had said, but that believing it merely an idle fancy, and persisting, too, in her own headstrong idea, that it was ill-temper, not illness, which rendered Ellen so disagreeable, she would not stoop so to conquer her unfortunate pride as to ask such a favor of her relatives, and to whom else could she appeal? Colonel Fortescue had none but distant cousins. She did satisfy a qualm of conscience by once suggesting to her husband--as her own idea, however, not as that of an experienced physician--that as he fancied Ellen was always ill, she might be better in England; but, as she expected, not only his intense love for his little girl rose up against the idea of separation, but his pride revolted from sending her to claim the pity of relatives who had so completely cast off her parents: yet had he been told it was absolutely necessary for her health and so greatly for her happiness, he would not have hesitated to sacrifice every thought of self. But Eleanor, satisfied that she had done her duty, and delighted that in one respect he was quite as proud as she was, never again referred to the subject, and the physician who had thus advised, from his constant removals, he never chanced to meet.