She rose up from the sofa, and walked and down the room in an ecstasy of sorrow.  “And it was I that helped to bring him here!  It was my doing!  O, my own, my dearest, my twin brother, I cannot live without him!”

“Henrietta,” said Mrs. Langford, “you do not know what you are saying; you must bear the will of God, be it what it may.”

“I can’t, I can not,” repeated Henrietta; “if I am to lose him, I can’t live; I don’t care for anything without Fred!”

“Your mother, Henrietta.”

“Mamma!  O, don’t speak of her; she would die, I am sure she would, without him; and then I should too, for I should have nothing.”

Henrietta’s grief was the more ungovernable that it was chiefly selfish; there was little thought of her mother,—­little, indeed, for anything but the personal loss to herself.  She hid her face in her hands, and sobbed violently, though without a tear, while Mrs. Langford vainly tried to make her hear of patience and resignation, turning away, and saying, “I can’t be patient—­no, I can’t!” and then again repeating her brother’s name with all the fondest terms of endearment.

Then came a sudden change:  it was possible that he yet lived—­and she became certain that he had been only stunned for a moment, and required her grandmamma to be so too.  Mrs. Langford, at the risk of a cruel disappointment, was willing to encourage her hope; but Henrietta, fancying herself treated like a petted child, chose to insist on being told really and exactly what was her view of the case.  Then she was urgent to go out and meet the others, and learn the truth; but this Mrs. Langford would not permit.  It was in kindness, to spare her some fearful sight, which might shock and startle her, but Henrietta was far from taking it so; her habitual want of submission made itself felt in spite of her usual gentleness, now that she had been thrown off her balance, and she burst into a passionate fit of weeping.

In such a dreadful interval of suspense, her conduct was, perhaps, scarcely under her own control; and it is scarcely just to mention it as a subject of blame.  But, be it remembered that it was the effect of a long previous selfishness and self-will; quiet, amiable selfishness; gentle, caressing self-will; but no less real, and more perilous and deceitful.  But for this, Henrietta would have thought more of her mother, prepared for her comfort, and braced herself in order to be a support to her; she would have remembered how terrible must be the shock to her grandmother in her old age, and how painful must be the remembrances thus excited of the former bereavement; and in the attempt to console her, the sense of her own sorrow would have been in some degree relieved; whereas she now seemed to forget that Frederick was anything to any one but herself.  She prayed, but it was one wild repetition of “O, give him back to me!—­save his life!—­let him be safe and well!” She had no room for any other entreaty; she did not call for strength and resignation on the part of herself and her mother, for whatever might be appointed; she did not pray that his life might be granted only if it was for his good; she could ask nothing but that her own beloved brother might be spared to herself, and she ended her prayer as unsubdued, and therefore as miserable, as when she began it.