“I never saw anyone so like a queen,” said Fred.  “No, nor anyone so beautiful, though she is so pale and thin.  People say you are like her in her young days, Henrietta; and to be sure, you have a decent face of your own, but you will never be as beautiful as mamma, not if you live to be a hundred.”

“You are afraid to compliment my face because it is so like your own, Master Fred,” retorted his sister; “but one comfort is, that I shall grow more like her by living to a hundred, whereas you will lose all the little likeness you have, and grow a grim old Black-beard!  But I was going to say, Fred, that, though I think there is a great deal of truth in what Uncle Geoffrey said, yet I do believe that poor grandmamma made it worse.  You know she had always been in India, and knew less about boys than mamma, who had been brought up with papa and my uncles, so she might really believe that everything was dangerous; and I have often seen her quite as much alarmed, or more perhaps, about you—­her consolations just showing that she was in a dreadful fright, and making mamma twice as bad.”

“Well,” said Fred, sighing, “that is all over now, and she thought she was doing it all for the best.”

“And,” proceeded Henrietta, “I think, and Queen Bee thinks, that this perpetual staying on at Rocksand was more owing to her than to mamma.  She imagined that mamma could not bear the sight of Knight Sutton, and that it was a great kindness to keep her from thinking of moving—­”

“Ay, and that nobody can doctor her but Mr. Clarke,” added Fred.

“Till now, I really believe,” said Henrietta, “that the possibility of moving has entirely passed out of her mind, and she no more believes that she can do it than that the house can.”

“Yes,” said Fred, “I do not think a journey occurs to her among events possible, and yet without being very fond of this place.”

“Fond!  O no! it never was meant to be a home, and has nothing homelike about it!  All her affections are really at Knight Sutton, and if she once went there, she would stay and be so much happier among her own friends, instead of being isolated here with me.  In grandmamma’s time it was not so bad for her, but now she has no companion at all but me.  Rocksand has all the loneliness of the country without its advantages.”

“There is not much complaint as to happiness, after all,” said Fred.

“No, O no! but then it is she who makes it delightful, and it cannot be well for her to have no one to depend upon but me.  Besides, how useless one is here.  No opportunity of doing anything for the poor people, no clergyman who will put one into the way of being useful.  O how nice it would be at Knight Sutton!”

“And perhaps she would be cured of her fears,” added Fred; “she would find no one to share them, and be convinced by seeing that the cousins there come to no harm.  I wish Uncle Geoffrey would recommend it!”