"Another doctor!" said she. "I have sent off an express for him. I have also sent for her father, but I doubt the messenger finding him. Take comfort, bairn, the case is not desperate. In the multitude of counselors there is safety, and I have known muckle good come from a change of doctors. But don't say a word to Amabel if she rouses up." The days went on to three or four, and still Amabel seemed to grow weaker. She lay most of the time in a sort of trance, now and then rousing to take a spoonful of tea or milk. I read to her from the Bible and Prayer-Book, and the look of her face seemed to show that she heard and liked the words, and sometimes I sung softly, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul!" and others of Mr. Wesley's hymns. I was thus engaged one day, when I heard the trampling of horses' feet, and the usual noises of a traveler's arrival. Amabel opened her eyes. "Lucy, he is come!" she whispered. "Who has come, dearest!" I asked, rejoicing to hear the voice I almost thought I should never hear again. "My father! I heard his voice. He will be in time. Let him come up! Go and bring him." I stopped a few minutes in my own room to compose myself, for the very thought of meeting Sir Julius roused such a tempest of indignation in my breast that I could hardly breathe. When I went down to the sitting-room, I found Sir Julius walking up and down the room, evidently overwhelmed with grief and embarrassment, while my lady seated in her great chair was laying down the law to him, and Mrs. Alice behind her stood regarding him as though he were the breaker of the covenant, the author of the union, and the gypsy who stole her ducks, all rolled into one. "But you must allow, aunt, that I had a right to bestow my daughter in marriage according to my own will!" said he, making a feeble effort to justify himself. "I allow no such thing, nephew. You had no right to make your child miserable, by giving her to a bad man and one that she detested. You know this Bulmer to be a bad man!" "Well, he was a friend to my lady, and she was set on the match." "And you let her rule you! And you allow this same friend of hers to stay at your house in your absence and give orders to your servants and shut your daughter up in her own room and half starve her, while you are sent away on a wild-goose chase and made the scorn of the whole country." Sir Julius turned red and white, and seemed not to know what to say. "Well, Lucy Corbet, what is it?" said Lady Thornyhaugh, turning to me. "Amabel is awake, madam!" said I. I could not bring myself to speak to Sir Julius. "She knows her father is here, and desires to see him, and I do not think there is any time to be lost." "She is not so bad as that, surely!" said Sir Julius, turning pale. "She is at death's door!" was the answer. "I have sent for another doctor from Newcastle. If he fails, all hope is over."