’My dear, I am sorry it seemed so unkind.  I do not think we could have let the pond stay, for it was making the house unhealthy; but if we had talked over it together, it need not have appeared so very cruel and spiteful.’

‘I don’t believe you are spiteful,’ said Sophy, ’though I sometimes think so.’

The filial compliment was highly gratifying.

‘And now, Sophy,’ she said, ’that I have told you why we were obliged to have the pond drained, will you tell me what you wanted with baby at Mrs. Osborn’s?’

‘I will tell,’ said Sophy, ‘but you wont like it.’

‘I like anything better than concealment.’

’Mrs. Osborn said she never saw him.  She said you kept him close, and that nobody was good enough to touch him; so I promised I would bring him over, and I kept my word.  I know it was wrong—­and—­I did not think you would ever forgive me.’

‘But how could you do it?’

’Mrs. Osborn and all used to be so kind to us when there was nobody else.  I wont cast them off because we are too fine and grand for them.’

’I never thought of that.  I only was afraid of your getting into silly ways, and your papa did not wish us to be intimate there.  And now you see he was right, for good friends would not have led you to such disobedience—­and by stealth, too, what I should have thought you would most have hated.’

Albinia had been far from intending these last words to have been taken as they were.  Sophy hid her face, and cried piteously with an utter self-abandonment of grief, that Albinia could scarcely understand; but at last she extracted some broken words.  ’False! shabby! yes—­Oh!  I have been false!  Oh!  Edmund!  Edmund!  Edmund! the only thing I thought I still was!  I thought I was true!  Oh, by stealth!  Why couldn’t I die when I tried, when Edmund did?’

‘And has life been a blank ever since?’

‘Off and on,’ said Sophy.  ’Well, why not?  I am sure papa is melancholy enough.  I don’t like people that are always making fun, I can’t see any sense in it.’

‘Some sorts of merriment are sad, and hollow, and wrong, indeed,’ said Albinia, ’but not all, I hope.  You know there is so much love and mercy all round us, that it is unthankful not to have a cheerful spirit.  I wish I could give you one, Sophy.’

Sophy shook her head.  ’I can’t understand about mercy and love, when Edmund was all I cared for.’

’But, Sophy, if life is so sad and hard to you, don’t you see the mercy that took Edmund away to perfect joy?  Remember, not cutting you off from him, but keeping him safe for you.’

‘No, no,’ cried Sophy, ’I have never been good since he went.  I have got worse and worse, but I did think I was true still, that that one thing was left me—­but now—­’ The sense of having acted a deception seemed to produce grief under which the stubborn pride was melting away, and it was most affecting to see the child weeping over the lost jewel of truth, which she seemed to feel the last link with the remarkable boy whose impress had been left so strongly on all connected with him.