"And the mistress?" I ventured to inquire, "the doctor says she's—"
"Damn the doctor!" he interrupted, reddening. "Frances is quite right—she'll be perfectly well by this time next week. Are you going up-stairs? will you tell her that I'll come, if she'll promise not to talk. I left her because she would not hold her tongue; and she must—tell her Mr. Kenneth says she must be quiet."
I delivered this message to Mrs. Earnshaw; she seemed in flighty spirits, and replied merrily—
"I hardly spoke a word, Ellen, and there he has gone out twice, crying. Well, say I promise I wont speak; but that does not bind me not to laugh at him!"
Poor soul! Till within a week of her death that gay heart never failed her; and her husband persisted doggedly, nay, furiously, in affirming her health improved every day. When Kenneth warned him that his medicines
