Maurice felt his lip quivering as his sister’s voice became choked—the sister to whom he had once been the whole world, and who still could pour out her inmost heart more freely to him than to any other. But it was a time for grave authority, and though he spoke gently, it was almost sternly.
‘Albinia, this is not right. It is not thankful or trustful. No, do not cry, but listen to me. Your child is as likely to do well as any child in the world, but nothing is so likely to do him harm as your want of composure.’
‘I tell myself so,’ said Albinia, ‘but there is no helping it.’
‘Yes, there is. Make it your duty to keep yourself still, and not be troubled about what may or may not happen, but be glad of the present pleasure.’
‘Don’t you think I am?’ said Albinia, half smiling; ‘so glad, that I grow frightened at myself, and—’ As if fain to leave the subject, she added, ‘And it is what you don’t understand, Maurice, but he can’t be the first to Edmund as he is to me—never—and when I get almost jealous for him, I think of Gilbert and the girls—and oh! there is so much to do for them—they want a mother so much—and Winifred wont let me see them, or tell me about them!’
She had grown piteous and incoherent, and a glance from Winifred told him, ‘this is always the way.’
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you will never be fit to attend to them if you do not use this present time rightly. You may hurt your health, and still more certainly, you will go to work fretfully and impetuously. If you have a busy life, the more reason to learn to be tranquil. Calm is forced on you now, and if you give way to useless nervous brooding over the work you are obliged to lay aside for a time, you have no right to hope that you will either have judgment or temper for your tasks.’
‘But how am I to keep from thinking, Maurice? The weaker I am, the more I think.’
‘Are you dutiful as to what Winifred there thinks wisest? Ah! Albinia, you want to learn, as poor Queen Anne of Austria did, that docility in illness may be self-resignation into higher Hands. Perhaps you despise it, but it is no mean exercise of strength and resolution to be still.’
Albinia looked at him as if receiving a new idea.