Henriettas Wish | Page 5

know it well," said his mother: "it is not actually
in the parish, but close to the borders, and a very pretty place."
"With a pretty little stream in the garden, Fred, "said Henrietta, "and
looking into that beautiful Sussex coom, that there is a drawing of in
mamma's room."
"What size is it?" added Fred.
"The comparative degree," said Mrs. Langford, "but my acquaintance
with it does not extend beyond the recollection of a pretty-looking
drawing- room with French windows, and a lawn where I used to be
allowed to run about when I went with Grandmamma Langford to call
on the old Miss Drakes. I wonder your Uncle Roger does not take it, for
those boys can scarcely, I should think, be wedged into Sutton Leigh
when they are all at home."
"I wish some one else would take it," said Fred.

"Some one," added Henrietta, "who would like it of all things, and be
quite at home there."
"A person," proceeded the boy, "who likes Knight Sutton and its inhab-
itants better than anything else."
"Only think," joined in the young lady, "how delightful it would be. I
can just fancy you, mamma, sitting out on this lawn you talk of, on a
summer's day, and nursing your pinks and carnations, and listening to
the nightingales, and Grandpapa and Grandmamma Langford, and
Uncle and Aunt Roger, and the cousins coming walking in at any time
without ringing at the door! And how nice to have Queen Bee and
Uncle and Aunt Geoffrey all the vacation!"
"Without feeling as if we were robbing Knight Sutton," said Mrs.
Langford. "Why, we should have you a regular little country maid,
Henrietta, riding shaggy ponies, and scrambling over hedges, as your
mamma did before you."
"And being as happy as a queen," said Henrietta; "and the poor people,
you know them all, don't you, mamma?"
"I know their names, but my generation must have nearly passed away.
But I should like you to see old Daniels the carpenter, whom the boys
used to work with, and who was so fond of them. And the old
schoolmistress in her spectacles. How she must be scandalized by the
introduction of a noun and a verb!"
"Who has been so cruel?" asked Fred. "Busy Bee, I suppose."
"Yes," said Henrietta, "she teaches away with all her might; but she
says she is afraid they will forget it all while she is in London, for there
is no one to keep it up. Now, I could do that nicely. How I should like
to be Queen Bee's deputy."
"But," said Fred, "how does Beatrice manage to make grandmamma
endure such novelties? I should think she would disdain them more
than the old mistress herself."
"Queen Bee's is not merely a nominal sovereignty," said Mrs.
Langford.
"Besides," said Henrietta, "the new Clergyman approves of all that sort
of thing; he likes her to teach, and puts her in the way of it."

CHAPTER II

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>From this time forward everything tended towards Knight Sutton:
castles in the air, persuasions, casual words which showed the turn of
thought of the brother and sister, met their mother every hour. Nor was
she, as Henrietta truly said, entirely averse to the change; she loved to
talk of what she still regarded as her home, but the shrinking dread of
the pang it must give to return to the scene of her happiest days, to the
burial-place of her husband, to the abode of his parents, had been
augmented by the tender over-anxious care of her mother, Mrs. Vivian,
who had strenuously endeavoured to prevent her from ever taking such
a proposal into consideration, and fairly led her at length to believe it
out of the question.
A removal would in fact have been impossible during the latter years of
Mrs. Vivian's life: but she had now been dead about eighteen months,
her daughter had recovered from the first grief of her loss, and there
was a general impression throughout the family that now was the time
for her to come amongst them again. For herself, the possibility was but
beginning to dawn upon her; just at first she joined in building castles
and imagining scenes at Knight Sutton, without thinking of their being
realized, or that it only depended upon her, to find herself at home there;
and when Frederick and Henrietta, encouraged by this manner of
talking, pressed it upon her, she would reply with some vague intention
of a return some time or other, but still thinking of it as something far
away, and rather to be dreaded than desired.
It was chiefly by dint of repetition that it fully entered her mind that it
was their real and earnest wish that she should engage to take