'Well!' exclaimed Lucy, 'if he is not there still! He has hardly
stirred since breakfast! Come and speak to Mrs. Ferrars, Gilbert.
Or,' and she simpered, 'shall it be Aunt Winifred?'
'As you please,' said Mrs. Ferrars, advancing towards her old
acquaintance, whom she would hardly have recognised, so different was
the pale, downcast, slouching figure, from the bright, handsome lad
she remembered.
'How cold your hand is!' she exclaimed; 'you should not sit in this
cold passage.'
'As I have been telling him all this morning,' said Lucy.
'How is she?' whispered the boy, rousing himself to look imploringly
in Winifred's face.
'Your father seems satisfied about her.'
At that moment a door at some distance was opened, and Gilbert seemed
to thrill all over as for the moment ere it closed a baby's cry was
heard. He turned his face away, and rested it on the window. 'My
brother! my brother!' he murmured, but at that moment his father
turned the corner of the passage, saying that Albinia had heard their
arrival, and was very eager to see her sister.
Still Winifred could not leave the boy without saying, 'You can make
Gilbert happy about her, can you not? He is waiting here, watching
anxiously for news of her.'
'Gilbert himself best knows whether he has a right to be made happy,'
said Mr. Kendal, gravely. 'I promised to ask no questions till she
is able to explain, but I much fear that he has been causing her
great grief and distress.
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