not an inch--no, not the hundredth part of an
inch--towards going there!"

"It would surely be a good thing for her if she could but be brought
to believe so," said Frederick. "All her attachments are there--her own
home; my father's home."

"There is nothing but the sea to be attached to, here," said
Henrietta. "Nobody can take root without some local interest, and as to
acquaintance, the people are always changing."

"And there is nothing to do," added Fred; "nothing possible but boating
and riding, which are not worth the misery which they cause her, as
Uncle Geoffrey says. It is very, very--"

"Aggravating," said Henrietta, supplying one of the numerous stock of
family slang words.

"Yes, aggravating," said he with a smile, "to be placed under the
necessity of being absurd, or of annoying her!"

"Annoying! O, Fred, you do not know a quarter of what she goes through
when she thinks you are in any danger. It could not be worse if you were
on the field of battle! And it is very strange, for she is not at all a
timid person for herself. In the boat, that time when the wind rose, I
am sure Aunt Geoffrey was more afraid than she was, and I have seen it
again and again that she is not easily frightened."

"No: and I do not think she is afraid for you."

"Not as she is for you, Fred; but then boys are so much more precious
than girls, and besides they love to endanger themselves so much, that I
think that is reasonable."

"Uncle Geoffrey thinks there is something nervous and morbid in it,"
said Fred: "he thinks that it is the remains of the horror of the sudden
shock--"

"What? Our father's accident?" asked Henrietta. "I never knew rightly
about that. I only knew it was when we were but a week old."

"No one saw it happen," said Fred; "he went out riding, his horse came
home without him, and he was lying by the side of the road."

"Did they bring him home?" asked Henrietta, in the same low thrilling
tone in which her brother spoke.

"Yes, but he never recovered his senses: he just said 'Mary,' once or
twice, and only lived to the middle of the night!"

"Terrible!" said Henrietta, with a shudder. "O! how did mamma ever
recover it?--at least, I do not think she has recovered it now,--but I
meant live, or be even as well as she is."

"She was fearfully ill for long after," said Fred, "and Uncle Geoffrey
thinks that these anxieties for me are an effect of the shock. He says
they are not at all like her usual