'
'But how am I to keep from thinking, Maurice? The weaker I am, the
more I think.'
'Are you dutiful as to what Winifred there thinks wisest? Ah!
Albinia, you want to learn, as poor Queen Anne of Austria did, that
docility in illness may be self-resignation into higher Hands.
Perhaps you despise it, but it is no mean exercise of strength and
resolution to be still.'
Albinia looked at him as if receiving a new idea.
'And,' he added, bending nearer her face, and speaking lower, 'when
you pray, let them be hearty faithful prayers that God's hand may be
over your child--your children, not half-hearted faithless ones, that
He may work out your will in them.'
'Oh, Maurice, how did you know? But you are not going? I have so
much to talk over with you.'
'Yes, I must go; and you must be still. Indeed I will watch over
Gilbert as though he were mine. Yes, even more. Don't speak again,
Albinia, I desire you will not. Good-bye.'
That lecture had been the most wholesome treatment she had yet
received; she ceased to give way without effort to restless thoughts
and cares, and was much less refractory.
When at last Lucy and Sophia were admitted, Winifred found perils
that she had not anticipated. Lucy was indeed supremely and
girlishly happy: but it was Sophy whose eye Albinia sought with
anxiety, and that eye was averted. Her cheek was cold like that of a
doll when Albinia touched it eagerly with her lips; and when Lucy
admonished her to kiss the dear little brother, she fairly turned and
ran out of the room.
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