CHAPTER XLII
The house they had taken was quiet, and sequestered from the noise of the streets, and had a small garden attached to it. It had evidently been newly furnished, and Helen set about arranging the largest room in it for Lord Teviot, with better hopes than she had felt at the hotel. She dwelt again and again to Mary on the necessity of moving this sofa or that arm-chair to particular places, because Teviot might like to lie down near the fire, or to sit up near the window. The cook, who had been sent in by Lord Beaufort, was ordered to prepare a dinner that would suit a man in the strongest health, and with the same breath she ordered gruel, and arrow-root, and barley-water, and all the wretched slops that count for food when all wish for it is over. Tomkinson was so glad to get away from the uncomfortable attic into which she had been put at the hotel that she was quite condescending to Laurel Cottage, and with the help of Lord Beaufort's servant and Lord Teviot's footman collected a quantity of things from various tradesmen that could not possibly be of any use, further than the pleasure they gave her of passing herself off to herself as an excellent housekeeper. And as she was really good-hearted, she had great ideas of saving my lady trouble, now she was in such grief, and she magnanimously forgave Lord Teviot for calling her Tomkins, and, indeed, would have answered to "Tom," under present circumstances, without a murmur. Mary had ascertained from her aunt the name of the best medical man in the town;
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