The Heir of Redclyffe | Page 8

confinement, why make mischief with them?'
Charles looked more impatient than abashed, and the compunction seemed chiefly to rest with Amabel.
'Now,' said Mrs. Edmonstone, 'I must go and see after my poor little prisoner.'
'Ah!' said Laura, as she went; 'it was no kindness in you to encourage Charlotte to stay, Amy, when you know how often that inquisitive temper has got her into scrapes.'
'I suppose so,' said Amy, regretfully; 'but I had not the heart to send her away.'
'That is just what Philip says, that you only want bones and sinews in your character to--'
'Come, Laura,' interrupted Charles, 'I won't hear Philip's criticisms of my sister, I had rather she had no bones at all, than that they stuck out and ran into me. There are plenty of angles already in the world, without sharpening hers.'
He possessed himself of Amy's round, plump, childish hand, and spread out over it his still whiter, and very bony fingers, pinching her 'soft pinky cushions,' as he called them, 'not meant for studying anatomy upon.'
'Ah! you two spoil each other sadly,' said Laura, smiling, as she left the room.
'And what do Philip and Laura do to each other?' said Charles.
'Improve each other, I suppose,' said Amabel, in a shy, simple tone, at which Charles laughed heartily.
'I wish I was as sensible as Laura!' said she, presently, with a sigh.
'Never was a more absurd wish,' said Charles, tormenting her hand still more, and pulling her curls; 'unwish it forthwith. Where should I be without silly little Amy? If every one weighed my wit before laughing, I should not often be in disgrace for my high spirits, as they call them.'
'I am so little younger than Laura,' said Amy, still sadly, though smiling.
'Folly,' said Charles; 'you are quite wise enough for your age, while Laura is so prematurely wise, that I am in constant dread that nature will take her revenge by causing her to do something strikingly foolish!'
'Nonsense!' cried Amy, indignantly. 'Laura do anything foolish!'
'What I should enjoy,' proceeded Charles, 'would be to see her over head and ears in love with this hero, and Philip properly jealous.'
'How can you say such things, Charlie?'
'Why? was there ever a beauty who did not fall in love with her father's ward?'
'No; but she ought to live alone with her very old father and horribly grim maiden aunt.'
'Very well, Amy, you shall be the maiden, aunt.' And as Laura returned at that moment, he announced to her that they had been agreeing that no hero ever failed to fall in love with his guardian's beautiful daughter.
'If his guardian had a beautiful daughter,' said Laura, resolved not to be disconcerted.
'Did you ever hear such barefaced fishing for compliments?' said Charles; but Amabel, who did not like her sister to be teased, and was also conscious of having wasted a good deal of time, sat down to practise. Laura returned to her drawing, and Charles, with a yawn, listlessly turned over a newspaper, while his fair delicate features, which would have been handsome but that they were blanched, sharpened, and worn with pain, gradually lost their animated and rather satirical expression, and assumed an air of weariness and discontent.
Charles was at this time nineteen, and for the last ten years had been afflicted with a disease in the hip-joint, which, in spite of the most anxious care, caused him frequent and severe suffering, and had occasioned such a contraction of the limb as to cripple him completely, while his general health was so much affected as to render him an object of constant anxiety. His mother had always been his most devoted and indefatigable nurse, giving up everything for his sake, and watching him night and day. His father attended to his least caprice, and his sisters were, of course, his slaves; so that he was the undisputed sovereign of the whole family.
The two elder girls had been entirely under a governess till a month or two before the opening of our story, when Laura was old enough to be introduced; and the governess departing, the two sisters became Charles's companions in the drawing-room, while Mrs. Edmonstone, who had a peculiar taste and talent for teaching, undertook little Charlotte's lessons herself.


CHAPTER 2

If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with't.--THE TEMPEST
One of the pleasantest rooms at Hollywell was Mrs. Edmonstone's dressing-room--large and bay-windowed, over the drawing-room, having little of the dressing-room but the name, and a toilet-table with a black and gold japanned glass, and curiously shaped boxes to match; her room opened into it on one side, and Charles's on the other; it was a sort of up-stairs parlour, where she taught Charlotte, cast up accounts, spoke to servants, and wrote notes, and where Charles was usually to be found, when unequal to