“Oh, but it is not that only! I shall feel it all so much more out of this room, where she has never been; but to see the rest of the house—to go past her door! O, uncle, I have not the strength for it.”
“No, your affection for him is not strong enough.”
Henrietta’s pale cheeks flushed, and her tears were angry. “You do not know me, Uncle Geoffrey,” said she proudly, and then she almost choked with weeping at unkindness where she most expected kindness.
“I know this much of you, Henrietta. You have been nursing up your grief and encouraging yourself in murmuring and repining, in a manner which you will one day see to have been sinful: you are obstinate in making yourself useless.”
Henrietta, little used to blame, was roused to defend herself with the first weapon she could. “Aunt Geoffrey is just as much knocked up as I am,” said she.
If ever Uncle Geoffrey was made positively angry, he was so now, though if he had not thought it good that Henrietta should be roused, he would have repressed even such demonstrations as he made. “Henrietta, this is too bad! Has she been weakly yielding?—has she been shutting herself up in her room, and keeping aloof from those who most needed her, lest she should pain her own feelings? Have not you rather been perplexing and distressing, and harassing her with your wilful selfishness, refusing to do the least thing to assist her in the care of your own brother, after she has been wearing herself out in watching over your mother? And now, when her strength and spirits are exhausted by the exertions she has made for you and yours, and I have been obliged to insist on her resting, you fancy her example an excuse for you! Is this the way your mother would have acted? I see arguing with you does you no good: I have no more to say.”
He got up, opened the door, and went out: Henrietta, dismayed at the accusation but too well founded on her words, had but one thought, that she should not deem her regardless of his kindness. “Uncle Geoffrey!” she cried, “O, uncle—” but he was gone; and forgetting everything else, she flew after him down the stairs, and before she recollected anything else, she found herself standing in the hall, saying, “O uncle, do not think I meant that!”
At that moment her grandpapa came out of the drawing-room. “Henrietta!” said he, “I am glad to see you downstairs.”
Henrietta hastily returned his kiss, and looked somewhat confused; then laying her hand entreatingly on her uncle’s arm, said, “Only say you are not angry with me.”
“No, no, Henrietta, not if you will act like a rational person,” said he with something of a smile, which she could not help returning in her surprise at finding herself downstairs after all.