"What of your mamma?" she inquired. "Is she ill?"
The question only seemed to increase Amy's distress, and Emily became alarmed. "Will you not try to be calm for my sake?" she said; "you cannot tell how anxious you are making me."
"Is it true?" exclaimed Amy, almost gasping for breath; "why did you not tell me before?"
"What should I have told you?" said Emily, feeling completely bewildered. "I have known nothing."
"But mamma," continued Amy, "she is so very ill—they say she is, and every one knows it but me;" and again her sobs became almost hysterical.
"This is some very great mistake, dearest," said Miss Morton; "you will, I am sure, try to calm yourself, and listen to me. Mrs Herbert is not at all worse than usual this evening."
"Ah! but Mrs Danvers said it," replied Amy.
"Said what?" asked Emily.
"She said," answered Amy, forcing herself to an unnatural composure, "that papa, perhaps, would not come home, and that mamma was so very ill; and she talked of my living here, and that I should be miserable: but I should die—oh! I know I should die," she added, with a vehemence which startled Miss Morton. "God would not let me live without them: do you think He would?"
The tone in which this was said was almost too much for Emily's firmness; for the trial which Amy dreaded, she had herself endured, and she well remembered its bitterness. "My own dear Amy," she said, "you must listen to me now, as you have often done before: you know that I shall speak nothing but the truth to you. Your mamma is ill from anxiety, but there is no reason to apprehend that anything is seriously the matter with her. Dr Bailey has been here this evening."