“The drop has made it overflow. She has repressed more than was good for her, and now that her guard is broken down, she gives way under the whole weight.”
“Poor Margaret! I am pertinacious; but, if she is not better by post time, papa will not bear to be away.”
“I’ll tell you what I think of her by that time. Send up your brother Richard, if you wish to do her good. Richard would be a much better person to write than yourself. I perceive that he is the reasonable member of the family.”
“Did not you know that before?”
“All I knew of him, till last night, was, that no one could, by any possibility, call him Dick.”
Dr. Spencer was glad to have dismissed Ethel smiling; and she was the better able to bear with poor Margaret’s condition of petulance. She had never before experienced the effects of bodily ailments on the temper, and she was slow to understand the change in one usually so patient and submissive. She was, by turns, displeased with her sister and with her own abruptness; but, though she knew it not, her bluntness had a bracing effect. She thought she had been cross in declaring it was nonsense to harp on her going to London; but it made Margaret feel that she had been unreasonable, and keep silence.
Richard managed her much better, being gentle and firm, and less ready to speak than Ethel, and he succeeded in composing her into a sleep, which restored her balance, and so relieved Ethel, that she not only allowed Dr. Spencer to say what he pleased, but herself made light of the whole attack, little knowing how perilous was any shock to that delicate frame.
Margaret’s whole purpose was to wind herself up for the first interview with Flora; and though she had returned to her usual state, she would not go downstairs on the evening the party were expected, believing it would be more grateful to her sister’s feelings to meet her without witnesses.
The travellers arrived, and Dr. May hurried up to her. She barely replied to his caresses and inquiries in her eagerness to hear of Flora, and to convince him that he must not forbid the meeting. Nor had he any mind so to do. “Surely,” said he, when he had seen the spiritualised look of her glistening blue eyes, the flush on her transparent cheeks, and her hands clasped over her breast—“surely poor Flora must feel as though an angel were waiting to comfort her.”
Flora came, but there was sore disappointment. Fond and tender she was as ever, but, neither by word or gesture, would she admit the most remote allusion to her grief. She withdrew her hand when Margaret’s pressure became expressive; she avoided her eye, and spoke incessantly of different subjects. All the time, her voice was low and hollow, her face had a settled expression of wretchedness, and her glances wandered drearily and restlessly anywhere but to Margaret’s face; but her steadiness of manner was beyond her sister’s power to break, and her visit was shortened on account of her husband. Poor George had quite given way at the sight of Gertrude, whom his little girl had been thought to resemble; and, though Dr. May had soothed him almost like a child, no one put any trust in his self-control, and all sat round, fearing each word or look, till Flora came downstairs, and they departed.