In the very early morning, Albinia was in the nursery, and found her
little boy bright and healthy. As she left him in glad hope and
gratitude, Sophy's door was pushed ajar, and her wan face peeped out.
'My dear child, you have not been asleep all night!' exclaimed
Albinia, after having satisfied her about the baby.
'No.'
'Does your arm hurt you?'
'Yes.'
'Does your head ache?'
'Rather.'
But they were not the old sulky answers, and she seemed glad to have
her arm freely bathed, her brow cooled, her tossed bed composed, and
her window opened, so that she might make a fresh attempt at closing
her weary eyes.
She was evidently far too much shaken to be fit for the intended
expedition, even if her father had not decreed that she should be
deprived of it. Albinia had never seen him so much incensed, for
nothing makes a man so angry as to have been alarmed; and he was
doubly annoyed when he found that she thought Sophy too unwell to be
left, as he intended, to solitary confinement.
He would gladly have given up the visit, for his repugnance to
society was in full force on the eve of a party; but Albinia, by
representing that it would be wrong to disappoint Colonel Bury, and
very hard on the unoffending Gilbert and Lucy, succeeded in
prevailing on him to accept his melancholy destiny, and to allow her
to remain at home with Sophy and the baby--one of the greatest
sacrifices he or she had yet made.
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