'I know it is very tiresome of me; I would help it, if I could—indeed I would.' And she cried the more because she had cried.
Or, as he came in from the town, he would hear ominous sounds, that his kind heart would not let him neglect, and would find Cherry sitting on the landing-place in a paroxysm of weeping. She always crept out of her mother's room on these occasions, for the sight of tears distressed and excited Mrs. Underwood; and the poor child, quite unable, in her hysterical condition, to drag herself alone up that steep stair, had no alternative but to sit, on what Mr. Audley called her stool of repentance, outside the door, till she had sobbed herself into exhaustion and calm—or till either Sibby scolded her, or he heard her confession.
She had been 'so cross' to Bernard, or to Angel—or, once or twice, even to Mamma. She had made an impatient answer when interrupted in her lessons or in a dream over a drawing; she had been reluctant to exert herself when wanted. She had scolded fretfully—or snatched things away angrily, when the little ones were troublesome; and every offence of this sort was bewailed with an anguish of tears; that, by weakening her spirits and temper, really rendered the recurrence more frequent. 'The one thing they trust to me, I fail in!'
He was very kind to her. He did not yield to the mannish loathing for girlish tears that began to seize on him, after the first two or three occasions. He thought and studied—tried comfort, and fancied it relaxed her—tried rebuke, and that made it worse; tried the showing her François de Sales' admirable counsel to Philothée, to be 'doux envers soi,' and saw she appreciated and admired it; but she was not an atom more douce envers soi when she had next spoken peevishly.
At last he fairly set off by the train, to lay the case before Sister Constance.
'What is to be done, when a child never does anything but cry?'
Sister Constance listened to the symptoms, and promptly answered, 'Give her a glass of port wine every day, before you let her out of your room.'
'If I can!'
'Tell her they are my orders. Does she eat?'
'I imagine not. I heard Felix reproaching her with a ghoul's dinner of a grain of rice.'