“I suppose we ought not to feel it either.” Norman only shook his head. “We ought to think of her gain. You can’t? Well, I am glad, for no more can I. I can’t think of her liking for papa and baby and all of us to be left to ourselves. But that’s not right of me, and of course it all comes right where she is; so I always put that out of my head, and think what is to come next in doing, and pleasing papa, and learning.”
“That’s grown horrid,” said Norman. “There’s no pleasure in getting on, nor in anything.”
“Don’t you care for papa and all of us being glad, Norman?” As Norman could not just then say that he did, he would not answer.
“I wish—” said Ethel, disappointed, but cheering up the next minute. “I do believe it is having nothing to do. You will be better when you get back to school on Monday.”
“That is worst of all!”
“You don’t like going among the boys again? But that must be done some time or other. Or shall I get Richard to speak to Dr. Hoxton to let you have another week’s leave?”
“No, no, don’t be foolish. It can’t be helped.”
“I am very sorry, but I think you will be better for it.”
She almost began to fancy herself unfeeling, when she found him so much more depressed than she was herself, and unable to feel it a relief to know that the time of rest and want of occupation was over. She thought it light-minded, though she could not help it, to look forward to the daily studies where she might lose her sad thoughts and be as if everything were as usual. But suppose she should be to blame, where would now be the gentle discipline? Poor Ethel’s feelings were not such as to deserve the imputation of levity, when this thought came over her; but her buoyant mind, always seeking for consolation, recurred to Margaret’s improvement, and she fixed her hopes on her.
Margaret was more alive to surrounding objects, and, when roused, she knew them all, answered clearly when addressed, had even, more than once, spoken of her own accord, and shown solicitude at the sight of her father’s bandaged, helpless arm, but he soon soothed this away. He was more than ever watchful over her, and could scarcely be persuaded to leave her for one moment, in his anxiety to be at hand to answer, when first she should speak of her mother, a moment apprehended by all the rest, almost as much for his sake as for hers.