Henriettas Wish | Page 3

made us shrink from asking any questions, or even from
talking to each other about it. All I knew I heard from Beatrice. Did
Uncle Geoffrey tell you this?"
"Yes, he told me when he was here last Easter, and I was asking him to
speak to mamma about my fishing, and saying how horrid it was to be
kept back from everything. First he laughed, and said it was the penalty

of being an only son, and then he entered upon this history, to show me
how it is."
"But it is very odd that she should have let you learn to ride, which one
would have thought she would have dreaded most of all."
"That was because she thought it right, he says. Poor mamma, she said
to him, 'Geoffrey, if you think it right that Fred should begin to ride,
never mind my folly.' He says that he thinks it cost her as much
resolution to say that as it might to be martyred. And the same about
going to school."
"Yes, yes; exactly," said Henrietta, "if she thinks it is right, bear it she
will, cost her what it may! O there is nobody like mamma. Busy Bee
says so, and she knows, living in London and seeing so many people as
she does."
"I never saw anyone so like a queen," said Fred. "No, nor anyone so
beautiful, though she is so pale and thin. People say you are like her in
her young days, Henrietta; and to be sure, you have a decent face of
your own, but you will never be as beautiful as mamma, not if you live
to be a hundred."
"You are afraid to compliment my face because it is so like your own,
Master Fred," retorted his sister; "but one comfort is, that I shall grow
more like her by living to a hundred, whereas you will lose all the little
likeness you have, and grow a grim old Black-beard! But I was going
to say, Fred, that, though I think there is a great deal of truth in what
Uncle Geoffrey said, yet I do believe that poor grandmamma made it
worse. You know she had always been in India, and knew less about
boys than mamma, who had been brought up with papa and my uncles,
so she might really believe that everything was dangerous; and I have
often seen her quite as much alarmed, or more perhaps, about you--her
consolations just showing that she was in a dreadful fright, and making
mamma twice as bad."
"Well," said Fred, sighing, "that is all over now, and she thought she
was doing it all for the best."
"And," proceeded Henrietta, "I think, and Queen Bee thinks, that this
perpetual staying on at Rocksand was more owing to her than to
mamma. She imagined that mamma could not bear the sight of Knight
Sutton, and that it was a great kindness to keep her from thinking of
moving--"

"Ay, and that nobody can doctor her but Mr. Clarke," added Fred.
"Till now, I really believe," said Henrietta, "that the possibility of
moving has entirely passed out of her mind, and she no more believes
that she can do it than that the house can."
"Yes," said Fred, "I do not think a journey occurs to her among events
possible, and yet without being very fond of this place."
"Fond! O no! it never was meant to be a home, and has nothing
homelike about it! All her affections are really at Knight Sutton, and if
she once went there, she would stay and be so much happier among her
own friends, instead of being isolated here with me. In grandmamma's
time it was not so bad for her, but now she has no companion at all but
me. Rocksand has all the loneliness of the country without its
advantages."
"There is not much complaint as to happiness, after all," said Fred.
"No, O no! but then it is she who makes it delightful, and it cannot be
well for her to have no one to depend upon but me. Besides, how
useless one is here. No opportunity of doing anything for the poor
people, no clergyman who will put one into the way of being useful. O
how nice it would be at Knight Sutton!"
"And perhaps she would be cured of her fears," added Fred; "she would
find no one to share them, and be convinced by seeing that the cousins
there come to no harm. I wish Uncle Geoffrey would recommend it!"
"Well, we will see what we can do," said Henrietta. "I do think we may
persuade her, and I think we ought; it would be for her happiness and
for yours, and on all accounts I am