Chapter 32 - Page 2

your last confinement but eight you became, I remember, hysterically irresponsible. Hold your tongue. You are hysterically irresponsible now.--Oscar! I decline, in justice to myself, to be present at any discussion which may follow the visit of those two professional persons. But I am not averse to advising you for your own good. My Foot is down. Put your foot down too.--Mrs. Finch! how long is it since you ate last? Two hours? Are you sure it is two hours? Very good. You require a sedative application. I order you, medically, to get into a warm bath, and stay there till I come to you.--Oscar! you are deficient, my good fellow, in moral weight. Endeavor to oppose yourself resolutely to any scheme, on the part of my unhappy daughter or of those who advise her, which involves more expenditure of money in fees, and new appearances of professional persons.--Mrs. Finch! the temperature is to be ninety-eight, and the position partially recumbent.--Oscar! I authorize you (if you can't stop it in any other way) to throw My moral weight into the scale. You are free to say 'I oppose This, with Mr. Finch's approval: I am, so to speak, backed by Mr. Finch.'--Mrs. Finch! I wish you to understand the object of the bath. Hold your tongue. The object is to produce a gentle action on your skin. One of the women is to keep her eye on your forehead. The instant she perceives an appearance of moisture, she is to run for me.--Oscar! you will let me know at what decision they arrive, up-stairs in my daughter's room. Not after they have merely heard what you have to say, but after My Moral Weight has been thrown into the scale.--Mrs. Finch! on leaving the bath, I shall have you only lightly clothed. I forbid, with a view to your head, all compression, whether of stays or strings, round the waist. I forbid garters--with the same object. You will abstain from tea and talking. You will lie, loose, on your back. You will----"

What else this unhappy woman was to do, I failed to hear. Mr. Finch disappeared with her, round the corner of the house. Oscar waited at the door of our side of the rectory, until Nugent joined him, on their way back to the sitting-room in which we were expecting their return.

After an interval of a few minutes, the brothers appeared.

Throughout the whole of the time during which the surgeons had been in the house, I had noticed that Nugent persisted in keeping himself scrupulously in the background. Having assumed the responsibility of putting the serious question of Lucilla's sight scientifically to the test, he appeared to be resolved to pause there, and to interfere no further in the affair after it had passed its first stage. And now again, when we were met in our little committee to discuss, and possibly to combat, Lucilla's resolution to proceed to extremities, he once more refrained from interfering actively with the matter in hand.

"I have brought Oscar back with me," he said to