"I advise you not to let yourself be amused by such trifles," said John Tatham, with a look of fire and flame. CHAPTER XXIII. As a matter of fact, Elinor did not go to the Cottage for the fresh air or anything else. She made one hurried run in the afternoon to bid her mother good-by, alone, which was not a visit, but the mere pretence of a visit, hurried and breathless, in which there was no time to talk of anything. She gave Mrs. Dennistoun an account of the usual lists of visits that her husband and she were to make in the autumn, which the mother, with the usual instinct of mothers, thought too much. "You will wear yourself to death, Elinor." "Oh, no," she said, "it is not that sort of thing that wears one to death. I shall--enjoy it, I suppose, as other people do----" "I don't know about enjoyment, Elinor, but I am sure it would be much better for you to come and stay here quietly with me." "Oh, don't talk to me of any paradises, mamma. We are in the working-day world, and we must make out our life as we can." "But you might let Philip go by himself and come and stay quietly here for a little, for the sake of your health, Elinor." "Not for the world, not for the world," she cried. "I cannot leave Phil:" and then with a laugh that was full of a nervous thrill, "You are always thinking of my health, mamma, when my health is perfect: better, far better, than almost anybody's. The most of them have headaches and that sort of thing, and they stay in bed for a day or two constantly, but I never need anything of the kind." "My darling, it would not be leaving Philip to take, say, a single week's rest." "While he went off without me I should not know where," she said, sullenly; then gave her mother a guilty look and laughed again. "No, no, mamma; he would not like it. A man does not like his wife to be an incapable, to have to leave him and be nursed up by her mother. Besides, it is to the country we are going, you know, to Scotland, the finest air; better even, if that were possible, than Windyhill."