I don't see how she is ever to get well, while it goes on in
this way! Mr. Kendal told me that Gilbert had been worrying and
distressing her; and as to those girls, the eldest of them is
intolerable with her airs, and the youngest--I asked her if she liked
babies, and she growled, "No." Lucy said Gilbert was waiting in the
passage for news of mamma, and she grunted, "All sham!" and that's
the whole I have heard of her! He is bad enough in himself, but with
such a train! My poor Albinia! If they are not the death of her, it
will be lucky!'
'Well done, Winifred!'
'But, Maurice,' said his impetuous wife, in a curiously altered tone,
'are not you very unhappy about Albinia?'
'I shall leave you to find that out for me.'
'Then you are not?'
'I think Kendal thoroughly values and appreciates her, and is very
uncomfortable without her.'
'I suppose so. People do miss a maid-of-all-work. I should not so
much mind it, if she had been only _his_ slave, but to be so to all
those disagreeable children of his too! And with so little effect.
Why can't he send them all to school?'
'Propose that to Albinia.'
'She did want the boy to go somewhere. I should not care where, so
it were out of her way. What creatures they must be for her to have
produced no more effect on them!'
'Poor Albinia! I am afraid it is a hard task: but these are still
early days, and we see things at a disadvantage.
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