‘Ah! baby, you had better have done with me,’ Sophy said, bitterly; ‘you are the only one that does not hate me yet, and you don’t know what I have done to you.’
‘I know some one else that cares for you, my poor Sophy,’ said Albinia, ‘and who would do anything to make you feel it without distressing you. If you knew how I wish I knew what to do for you!’
‘It is no use,’ said Sophy, moodily; ‘I was born to be a misery to myself and every one else.’
‘What has put such a fancy in your head, my dear?’ said Albinia, nearly smiling.
‘Grandmamma’s Betty said so, she used to call me Peter Grievous, and I know it is so. It is of no good to bother yourself about me. It can’t be helped, and there’s an end of it.’
‘There is not an end of it, indeed!’ cried Albinia. ‘Why, Sophy, do you suppose I could bear to leave you so?’
‘I’m sure I don’t see why not.’
‘Why not?’ continued Albinia, in her bright, tender voice. ‘Why, because I must love you with all my heart. You are your own dear papa’s child, and this little man’s sister. Yes, and you are yourself, my poor, sad, lonely child, who does not know how to bring out the thoughts that prey on her, and who thinks it very hard to have a stranger instead of her own mother. I know I should have felt so.’
‘But I have behaved so ill to you,’ cried Sophy, as if bent on repelling the proffered affection. ‘I would not like you, and I did not like you. Never! and I have gone against you every way I could.’
‘And now I love you because you are sorry for it.’