'
Albinia was right. It was the worst agony poor Sophy had ever
undergone. She had been all this time ignorant that it was a cross
fit, only imagining herself cruelly neglected and cast aside for the
sake of Mrs. Ferrars; but the wakening time had either arrived, or
had been brought by that reproach, and she beheld her conduct in the
most abhorrent light. After having desired to be pledged to her
share of the covenant, and earnestly longed to bear the cross, to be
sworn in as soldier and servant, to have put her neck under the yoke
of her old master ere the cross had dried upon her brow, to have been
meanly jealous, ungrateful, disrespectful, vindictive!! oh! misery,
misery! hopeless misery! She would take no word of comfort when
Albinia tried to persuade her that it had been partly the reaction of
a mind wrought up to an occasion very simple in its externals, and of
a body fatigued by exertion; and then in warm-hearted candour
professed that she herself had been thoughtless in neglecting Sophy
for Winifred. Still less comfort would she take in her father's free
forgiveness, and his sad entreaties that she would not treat these
fits of low spirits as a crime, for they were not her fault, but that
of her constitution.
'Then one can't help being hateful and wicked! Nothing is of any
use! I had rather you had told me I was mad!' said poor Sophy.
She was so spent and exhausted with weeping, that she could not come
down--indeed, between grief and nervousness she would not eat; and
Albinia found Mr.
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