whether or no the sea-kale was worth the eating! It's not so badly biled; I will say that for Hannah Cook, though she is rampagious sometimes.' He longed to ask her what words Madeline had used, even in speaking on such a subject as this; but he did not dare to do so. Mrs. Baker was very fond of talking about Miss Madeline, but Graham was by no means assured that he should find an ally in Mrs. Baker if he told her all the truth.
At last the hour arrived, and Augustus came to convoy him down to the drawing-room. It was now many days since he had been out of that room, and the very fact of moving was an excitement to him. He hardly knew how he might feel in walking down stairs, and could not quite separate the nervousness arising from his shattered bones from that other nervousness which came from his—shattered heart. The word is undoubtedly a little too strong, but as it is there, there let it stay. When he reached the drawing-room, he almost felt that he had better decline to enter it. The door however was opened, and he was in the room before he could make up his mind to any such step, and he found himself being walked across the floor to some especial seat, while a dozen kindly anxious faces were crowding round him.
'Here's an arm-chair, Mr. Graham, kept expressly for you, near the fire,' said Lady Staveley. 'And I am extremely glad to see you well enough to fill it.'
'Welcome out of your room, sir,' said the judge. 'I compliment you, and Pottinger also, upon your quick recovery; but allow me to tell you that you don't yet look like a man fit to rough it alone in London.'
'I feel very well, sir,' said Graham.
And then Mrs. Arbuthnot greeted him, and Miss Furnival, and four or five others who were of the party, and he was introduced to one or two whom he had not seen before. Marian too came up to him,—very gently, as though he were as brittle as glass, having been warned by her mother. 'Oh, Mr. Felix,' she said, 'I was so unhappy when your bones were broken. I do hope they won't break again.'
And then he perceived that Madeline was in the room and was coming up to him. She had in truth not been there when he first entered, having thought it better, as a matter of strategy, to follow upon his footsteps. He was getting up to meet her, when Lady Staveley spoke to him.
'Don't move, Mr. Graham. Invalids, you know, are chartered.'
⟨'⟩I am very glad to see you once more downstairs,' said Madeline, as she frankly gave him her hand,—not merely touching his—'very, very glad. But I do hope you will get stronger before you venture to leave Noningsby. You have frightened us all very much by your terrible accident.'
