If he has
any advice to offer, he can come to me with it. Eh? What?"
"Father, I am as sick as can be to-night."
"Go thy ways then. Mother and I are both poorly too. Good-night, girls,
both." And he turned away with an air of hopeless depression, that was
far more pitiful than the loudest complaining.
The sisters went away together, silent, and feeling quite "out" with
each other. But Sophia really had a nervous attack, and was shivery and
sick with it. By the lighted candle in her hand, Charlotte saw that her
very lips were white, and that heavy tears were silently rolling down
her wan cheeks. They washed all of Charlotte's anger away; she forgot
her resolution not to enter her sister's room again, and at its door she
said, "Let me stay with you till you can sleep, Sophia; or I will go,
and ask Ann to make you a cup of strong coffee. You are suffering very
much."
"Yes, I am suffering; and father knows how I do suffer with these
headaches, and that any annoyance brings them on; and yet, if Harry
cries out at Edinburgh, every one in Seat-Sandal must be put out of
their own way to help him. And I do think it is a shame that our little
fortunes are to be crumbled as a kind of spice into his big fortune. If
Harry does not know the value of money I do."
"I will pay you back every pound. I really do not care a bit about
money. I have all the dress I want. You buy books and music, I do not.
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