Mesmerism was frequently useful in these cases. Mr. Noel Vanstone's
father had been the most powerful mesmerist in Europe, and Mr. Noel
Vanstone was his father's son. Might he mesmerize? Might he order that
infernal coachman to draw up in a shady place adapted for the purpose?
Would medical help be preferred? Could medical help be found any
nearer than Aldborough? That ass of a coachman didn't know. Stop every
respectable man who passed in a gig, and ask him if he was a doctor! So
Mr. Noel Vanstone ran on, with brief intervals for breathing-time, in a
continually-ascending scale of sympathy and self-importance, throughout
the drive home.
Mrs. Lecount accepted her defeat without uttering a word. From the
moment when Captain Wragge interrupted her, her thin lips closed and
opened no more for the remainder of the journey. The warmest expressions
of her master's anxiety for the suffering young lady provoked from her
no outward manifestations of anger. She took as little notice of him
as possible. She paid no attention whatever to the captain, whose
exasperating consideration for his vanquished enemy made him more polite
to her than ever. The nearer and the nearer they got to Aldborough the
more and more fixedly Mrs.
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