Selina
ascribed it to excitement at meeting Martyn, and indeed he had been
subject to such attacks every autumn. Any way, he had no spirits
nor wish for improvement. If his brothers told him he was better,
he smiled and said it was like a condemned criminal trying to
recover enough for the gallows. His only desire was to be let alone
and have Clarence with him. He had ceased to be uneasy as to
Martyn's exposure to temptation, but he said he could hardly bear to
watch that bright, fresh young manhood, and recollect how few years
had passed since he had been such another, nor did he like to have
any nurse save Clarence. His wife at first acquiesced, holding fast
to the theory of the periodical autumnal fever, and then that the
operation would restore him to health; and as her presence fretted
him, and he received her small attentions peevishly, she persisted
in her usual habits, and heard with petulance his brothers'
assurances of his being in a critical condition, declaring that it
was always thus with these fevers--he was always cross and low-
spirited, and no one could tell what she had undergone with him.
Then came days of positive pain, and nights of delirious, dreary
murmuring about home and all of us, more especially Ellen Fordyce.
Clarence had no time for letters, and Martyn's became a call for
mamma, with the old childish trust in her healing and comforting
powers, declaring that he would meet her at Cologne, and steer her
through the difficulties of foreign travel.
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