‘I only meant inconvenient to the birthday party,’ drily said her brother.
‘Maurice!’ cried she, ‘you don’t know the boy!’
‘I have no doubt that he has a cold.’
‘And I know there is a great deal more the matter!’ cried Albinia. ‘We have let him go away to be neglected and badly treated! My poor, dear boy! Edmund, I will fetch him home to-morrow.’
‘You had better send me,’ said Maurice, mischievously, for he saw he was diminishing Mr. Kendal’s alarm, and had a brotherly love of teasing Albinia, and seeing how pretty she looked with her eyes flashing through wrathful tears, and her foot patting impetuously on the carpet.
‘You!’ she cried; ‘you don’t believe in him! You fancy all boys are made of iron and steel—you would only laugh at him—you made us send him there—I wish—’
‘Gently, gently, my dear Albinia,’ said her husband, dismayed at her vehemence, just when it most amused her brother. ‘You cannot expect Maurice to feel exactly as we do, and I confess that I have much hope that this alarm may be more than adequate.’
‘He thinks it all a scheme!’ said Albinia, in a tone of great injury.
‘No, indeed, Albinia,’ answered her brother, seriously, ‘I fully believe that Gilbert imagines all that he tells you, but you cannot suppose that either the tutor or doctor could fail to see if he were so very ill.’
‘Certainly not,’ assented Mr. Kendal.