Henrietta knew that Aunt Geoffrey and grandpapa were both of them anxious about her mother's health, but for her own part she did not think her worse than she had often been before; and whilst she continued in nearly the same state, rose every day, sat in her arm-chair, and was so cheerful, and even lively, there could not be very much amiss, even though there was no visible progress in amendment. Serious complaint there was, as she knew of old, to cause the spasms; but it had existed so long, that after the first shock of being told of it two years ago, she had almost ceased to think about it. She satisfied herself to her own mind that it could not, should not be progressing, and that this was only a very slow recovery from the last attack.
Time went on, and a shade began to come over Fred. He was bright and merry when anything occurred to amuse him, did not like reading less, or take less interest in his occupations; but in the intervals of quiet he grew grave and almost melancholy, and his inquiries after his mother grew minute and anxious.
"Henrietta," said he, one day when they were alone together, "I was trying to reckon how long it is since I have seen mamma."
"O, I think she will come and see you in a few days more," said Henrietta.
"You have told me that so many times," said Fred. "I think I must try to get to her. That passage, if it was not so very long! If Uncle Geoffrey comes on Saturday, I am sure he can manage to take me there."
"It will be a festival day indeed when you meet!" said Henrietta.
"Yes," said he thoughtfully. Then returning to the former subject, "But how long is it, Henrietta? This is the twenty-seventh of March, is it not?"
"Yes; a whole quarter of a year you have been laid up here."
"It was somewhere about the beginning of February that Uncle Geoffrey went."
"The fourth," said Henrietta.
"And it was three days after he went away that mamma had those first spasms. Henrietta, she has been six weeks ill!"
"Well," said Henrietta, "you know she was five weeks without stirring out of the room, that last time she was ill at Rocksand, and she is getting better."
"I don't think it is getting better," said Fred. "You always say so, but I don't think you have anything to show for it."
"You might say the same for yourself," said Henrietta, laughing. "You have been getting better these three months, poor man, and you need not boast."
"Well, at least I can show something for it," said Fred; "they allow me a lark's diet instead of a wren's, I can hold up my head like other people now, and I actually made my own legs and the table's carry me to the window yesterday, which is what I call getting on. But I do not think it is so with mamma. A fortnight ago she used to be up by ten or eleven o'clock; now I don't believe she ever is till one."
"It has been close, damp weather," said Henrietta, surprised at the accurate remembrance, which she could not confute. "She misses the cold bracing wind."
"I don't like it," said Fred, growing silent, and after a short interval beginning again more earnestly, "Henrietta, neither you nor any one else are keeping anything from me, I trust?"
"O, no, no!" said Henrietta, eagerly.
"You are quite sure?"
"Quite," responded she. "You know all I know, every bit; and I know all Aunt Geoffrey does, I am sure I do, for she always tells me what Mr. Philip Carey says. I have heard Uncle and Aunt Geoffrey both say strong things about keeping people in the dark, and I am convinced they would not do so."
"I don't think they would," said Fred; "but I am not satisfied. Recollect and tell me clearly, are they convinced that this is only recovering slowly-I do not mean that; I know too well that this is not a thing to be got rid of; but do they think that she is going to be as well as usual?"
"I do," said Henrietta, "and you know I am more used to her illness than any of them. Bennet and I were agreeing to-day that, considering how bad the spasms were, and how much fatigue she had been going through, we could not expect her to get on faster."
"You do? But that is not Aunt Geoffrey."
"O! Aunt Geoffrey is anxious, and expected her to get on faster, just like Busy Bee expecting everything to be so quick; but I am sure you could not get any more information from her than from me, and impressions-I am sure you may trust mine, used as I am to watch mamma."
Fred asked no more; but it was observable that from that day he never lost one of his mother's little notes, placing them as soon as read in his pocket-book, and treasuring them carefully. He also begged Henrietta to lend him a miniature of her mother, taken at the time of her marriage. It represented her in all her youthful loveliness, with the long ringlets and plaits of dark brown hair hanging on her neck, the arch suppressed smile on her lips, and the laughing light in her deep blue eye. He looked at it for a little while, and then asked Henrietta if she thought that she could find, among the things sent from Rocksand which had not yet been unpacked, another portrait, taken in the earlier months of her widowhood, when she had in some partial degree recovered from her illness, but her life seemed still to hang on a thread. Mrs. Vivian, at whose especial desire it had been taken, had been very fond of it, and had always kept it in her room, and Fred was very anxious to see it again. After a long search, with Bennet's help, Henrietta found it, and brought it to him. Thin, wan, and in the deep black garments, there was much more general resemblance to her present appearance in this than in the portrait of the beautiful smiling bride. "And yet," said Fred, as he compared them, "do not you think, Henrietta, that there is more of mamma in the first?"
"I see what you mean," said Henrietta. "You know it is by a much better artist."
"Yes," said he, "the other is like enough in feature,-more so certainly to anything we have ever seen: but what a difference! And yet what is it? Look! Her eyes generally have something melancholy in their look, and yet I am sure those bright happy ones put me much more in mind of hers than these, looking so weighed down with sorrow. And the sweet smile, that is quite her own!"
"If you could but see her now, Fred," said Henrietta, "I think you would indeed say so. She has now and then a beautiful little pink flush, that lights up her eyes as well as her cheeks; and when she smiles and talks about those old times with papa, she does really look just like the miniature, all but her thinness."
"I do not half like to hear of all that talking about my father," murmured Fred to himself as he leant back. Henrietta at first opened her eyes; then a sudden perception of his meaning flashed over her, and she began to speak of something else as fast as she could.
Uncle Geoffrey came on Saturday afternoon, and after paying a minute's visit to Fred, had a conference of more than an hour with his sister-in-law. Fred did not seem pleased with his sister's information that "it was on business," and only was in a slight degree re-assured by being put in mind that there was always something to settle at Lady-day. Henrietta thought her uncle looked grave; and as she was especially anxious to prevent either herself or Fred from being frightened, she would not leave him alone in Fred's room, knowing full well that no questions would be asked except in private-none at least of the description which she dreaded.
All Fred attempted was the making his long-mediated request that he might visit his mother, and Uncle Geoffrey undertook to see whether it was possible. Numerous messages passed, and at length it was arranged that on Sunday, just before afternoon service, when the house was quiet, his uncle should help him to her room, where his aunt would read to them both.