‘From my heart.’

‘Then why do you doubt?  Do you expect her to do anything?’

‘A little too much of everything.’

CHAPTER VIII.

Yes!  Albinia was excessively happy.  Her naturally high spirits were enhanced by the enjoyment of recovery, and reaction, from her former depression.  Since the great stroke of the drainage, every one looked better, and her pride in her babe was without a drawback.  He seemed to have inherited her vigour and superabundance of life, and ’that first wondrous spring to all but babes unknown,’ was in him unusually rapid, so that he was a marvel of fair stateliness, size, strength, and intelligence, so unlike the little blighted buds which had been wont to fade at Willow Lawn, that his father watched him with silent, wondering affection, and his eldest sister was unmerciful in her descriptions of his progress; while even Sophia had not been proof against his smiles, and was proud to be allowed to carry him about and fondle him.

Neither was Mr. Kendal’s reserve the trial that it had once been.  After having become habituated to it as a necessary idiosyncrasy, she had become rather proud of his lofty inaccessibility.  Besides, her brother’s visit, her recovery, and the renewed hope and joy in this promising child, had not been without effect in rousing him from his apathy.  He was less inclined to shun his fellow-creatures, had become friendly with the Vicar, and had even let Albinia take him into Mrs. Dusautoy’s drawing-room, where he had been fairly happy.  Having once begun taking his wife out in the carriage, he found this much more agreeable than his solitary ride, and was in the condition to which Albinia had once imagined it possible to bring him, in which gentle means and wholesome influence might lead him imperceptibly out of his morbid habits of self-absorption.

Unfortunately, in the flush of blitheness and whirl of activity, Albinia failed to perceive the relative importance of objects, and he had taught her to believe herself so little necessary to him that she had not learnt to make her pursuits and occupations subservient to his convenience.  As long as the drive took place regularly, all was well, but he caught a severe cold, which lasted even to the setting in of the east winds, the yearly misery of a man who hardly granted that India was over-hot.  Though Albinia had removed much listing, and opened various doors and windows, he made no complaints, but did his best to keep the obnoxious fresh air out of his study, and seldom crossed the threshold thereof but with a shiver.

His favourite atmosphere was quite enough to account for a return of the old mood, but Albinia had no time to perceive that it might have been prevented, or at least mitigated.

Few even of the wisest women are fit for authority and liberty so little restrained, and happily it seldom falls to the lot of such as have not previously been chastened by a life-long affliction.  But Mrs. Kendal, at twenty-four, with the consequence conferred by marriage, and by her superiority of manners and birth, was left as unchecked and almost as irresponsible as if she had been single or a widow, and was solely guided by the impulses of her own character, noble and highly principled, but like most zealous dispositions, without balance and without repose.