“Nothing very serious, we hope, my dear,” said Mrs. Langford. “It was Willy who frightened you. Fred has had a fall, and your mamma and uncles are gone to see about him.”
“A fall! O, tell me, tell me! I am sure it is something dreadful! O, tell me all about it, grandmamma, is he much hurt? O, Freddy, Freddy!”
With more quietness than could have been anticipated from so active and bustling a nature, Mrs. Langford gradually told her granddaughter all that she knew, which was but little, as she had been in attendance on her, and had only heard the main fact of Willy’s story. Henrietta clapped her hands wildly together in an agony of grief. “He is killed—he is, I’m sure of it!” said she. “Why do you not tell me so?”
“My dear, I trust and believe that he is only stunned.”
“No, no, no! papa was killed in that way, and I am sure he is! O, Fred, Fred, my own dear, dear brother, my only one! O, I cannot bear it! O, Fred!”
She rose up from the sofa, and walked and down the room in an ecstasy of sorrow. “And it was I that helped to bring him here! It was my doing! O, my own, my dearest, my twin brother, I cannot live without him!”
“Henrietta,” said Mrs. Langford, “you do not know what you are saying; you must bear the will of God, be it what it may.”
“I can’t, I can not,” repeated Henrietta; “if I am to lose him, I can’t live; I don’t care for anything without Fred!”
“Your mother, Henrietta.”
“Mamma! O, don’t speak of her; she would die, I am sure she would, without him; and then I should too, for I should have nothing.”