'We have let him go away to be neglected and badly treated! My poor,
dear boy! Edmund, I will fetch him home to-morrow.'
'You had better send me,' said Maurice, mischievously, for he saw he
was diminishing Mr. Kendal's alarm, and had a brotherly love of
teasing Albinia, and seeing how pretty she looked with her eyes
flashing through wrathful tears, and her foot patting impetuously on
the carpet.
'You!' she cried; 'you don't believe in him! You fancy all boys are
made of iron and steel--you would only laugh at him--you made us send
him there--I wish--'
'Gently, gently, my dear Albinia,' said her husband, dismayed at her
vehemence, just when it most amused her brother. 'You cannot expect
Maurice to feel exactly as we do, and I confess that I have much hope
that this alarm may be more than adequate.'
'He thinks it all a scheme!' said Albinia, in a tone of great injury.
'No, indeed, Albinia,' answered her brother, seriously, 'I fully
believe that Gilbert imagines all that he tells you, but you cannot
suppose that either the tutor or doctor could fail to see if he were
so very ill.'
'Certainly not,' assented Mr. Kendal.
'And low spirits are more apt to accompany a slight ailment, than
such an illness as you apprehend.'
'I believe you are right,' said Mr. Kendal. 'Where is the letter?'
Albinia did not like it to come under discussion, but could not
withhold it, and as she read it again, she felt that neither Maurice
nor her cousin Fred could have written the like, but she was only the
more impelled to do battle, and when she came to the unlucky
conclusion, she exclaimed, 'I am sure that was an afterthought.
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