Had Frederick possessed that instinct, how much present suffering and future wretchedness might have been spared him!  His ideas were as yet too disconnected for him to understand or bear in mind that he was subjecting his mother to excessive fatigue, but the habit of submission would have led him to bear her absence patiently, instead of perpetually interrupting even the short repose which she would now and then be persuaded to seek on the sofa.  He would have spared her his perpetual, harassing complaints, not so much of the pain he suffered, as of every thing and every person who approached him, his Uncle Geoffrey being the only person against whom he never murmured.  Nor would he have rebelled against measures to which he was obliged to submit in the end, after he had distressed every one and exhausted himself by his fruitless opposition.

It was marvellous that the only two persons whose attendance he would endure could bear up under the fatigue.  Even Uncle Geoffrey, one of those spare wiry men, who, without much appearance of strength are nevertheless capable of such continued exertion, was beginning to look worn and almost aged, and yet Mrs. Frederick Langford was still indefatigable, unconscious of weariness, quietly active, absorbed in the thought of her son, and yet not so absorbed as not to be full of consideration for all around.  All looked forward with apprehension to the time when the consequences of such continued exertion must be felt, but in the meantime it was not in the power of any one except her brother Geoffrey to be of any assistance to her, and her relations could only wait and watch with such patience as they could command, for the period when their services might be effectual.

Mrs. Langford was the most visibly impatient.  The hasty bustling of her very quietest steps gave such torture to Frederick, as to excuse the upbraiding eyes which he turned on his poor perplexed mother whenever she entered the room; and her fresh arrangements and orders always created a disturbance, which created such positive injury, that it was the aim of the whole family to prevent her visits there.  This was, as may be supposed, no easy task.  Grandpapa’s “You had better not, my dear,” checked her for a little while, but was far from satisfying her:  Uncle Geoffrey, who might have had the best chance, had not time to spare for her; and no one could persuade her how impossible, nay, how dangerous it was to attempt to reason with the patient:  so she blamed the whole household for indulging his fancies, and half a dozen times a day pronounced that he would be the death of his mother.  Beatrice did the best she could to tranquillise her; but two spirits so apt to clash did not accord particularly well even now, though Busy Bee was too much depressed to queen it as usual.  To feel herself completely useless in the midst of the suffering she had occasioned was a severe trial; and above all, poor child, she longed for her mother, and the repose of confession and parental sympathy.  She saw her father only at meal times; she was anxious and uneasy at his worn looks, and even he could not be all that her mother was.  Grandpapa was kind as ever, but the fault that sat so heavy on her mind was not one for discussion with any one but a mother, and this consciousness was the cause of a little reserve with him, such as had never before existed between them.