“I hope so too,” said Margaret, with another smile. “Charlie is troubled with an anxious mind. To see you so friendly will be very good for him, very good.”
“Oh, I hope you will let me be friendly!” cried Harry, with a glow of delight. “When does he go out? I suppose he is busy with the old doctor, visiting the sick people. You were with him yesterday—”
“He thinks it is good for my health to go with him; and then he thinks I am dull when he’s away,” said Margaret. “He is a real good brother; there are not many like him. Yes, he is going about with Dr. Franks nearly all the day.”
“And you are quite alone, and dull? I am so sorry. I wish you would let me show you the neighbourhood; or if you would come and walk in the park or the wood—my aunt, I am sure, would be too glad.”
“Oh, I’m not dull,” said Margaret. “I have my little girl. She is all I have in the world, except Charles; and we are great companions, are we no, Sibby?”
This was said with a change in the voice, which Harry thought, made it still more like a wood-pigeon’s note.
“Ay are we,” said the little thing, putting down her knitting, and laying back her little head, like a kitten, rubbing against her mother’s knee. Nothing could be prettier as a picture, more natural, more simple; and though the child’s jargon was scarcely comprehensible to Harry, his heart answered to this renewed appeal upon it.
“But sometimes,” he said, “you must want other companionship than that of a child.”
“Do I?” said Margaret, pressing the little head against her. “I am not sure. After all, I think I’m happiest with her, thinking of nothing else; but you, a young man, will scarcely understand that.”
“Though I am a young man, I think I can understand it,” said Harry. He seemed to himself to be learning a hundred lessons, with an ease and facility he was never conscious of before. “But if I were to come and take you both out for a walk, into the woods, or through the park, to show you the country, that would be good both for her and you.”