"In the store-room, Phyllis!" said Winifred. "Quickly, my dear." Phyllis was back almost before the words were spoken, and the doctor prepared the anodyne with his own hands. There had always been a great struggle to make Betty take medicine, but her own alarm and distress and the ascendency Winifred had already obtained over her rendered her docile. "Now, she must be put to bed, and kept absolutely quiet," said the doctor. "This young lady—I have not the honor of knowing her name—seems to have her wits at her fingers' ends. Let her stay with the child and sit up with her to-night. You, madam, keep the house very quiet. I am to be in town some days, and I will look in upon you again in the morning." "What causes these attacks, doctor?" asked Lady Corbet, after Betty had left the room. "Heart disease," answered Doctor Mercer, briefly. "I am sorry to shock you, madam, but it is but right you should know, in order to guard against them, since every paroxysm she has is just so much ground lost. With care, she may outgrow them, but she is likely enough to die in any one. You must avoid all cause of excitement with her; never let her be struck or shaken; above all, taken roughly by the left arm. One such shock may be fatal." Paulina, in her dark corner, buried her face deeper at these words, as she remembered how sharply she had shaken Betty by that very arm, and how thin and fragile it had felt in her grasp. The twins heard it also as they clung together in the window, and promised each other in whispers that they would never, no, never tease Betty again, no matter what she did, if God would only spare her this time. "And what about this fever, doctor, that they say is in the town? Can one do anything to keep it off by fumigations or the like?" "The best way to keep it off is to use plenty of air and cleanliness," replied Doctor Mercer, who was so far in advance of his age as to be accounted almost a heretic by his learned brethren. "Use good food in moderation, and see that your work-people and the poor about you have the same, and leave the rest to God." "But you will come and see my poor Betty again in the morning?" urged the anxious mother. "To be sure! I said so. By the way, who is this young gentlewoman who seems to understand herself so well? A kinswoman of your own?" "Nay, I cannot call her a kinswoman exactly, though she is a connection of my cousin Margaret, Lady Peckham of Holford, and was indeed partly brought up by her," answered Lady Corbet, who never failed to sport the Peckhams of Holford on every possible occasion. "Her father was captain of a vessel sailing from this port, and son of a Somersetshire yeoman of good estate, but her mother was daughter to a Devonshire gentleman of very old family. She is daily governess to my daughters, and I am so much pleased with her that I think of taking her into my house altogether."