"Am I one of the family, or am
I not?" Julius would ask Sophia on such occasions; and then the
discussion of this question separated them from it, sometimes for hours
at a time.
Mrs. Sandal hardly perceived the growth of this domestic antagonism.
When Harry was at Seat-Sandal, she lived and moved and had her being in
Harry. His food and drink, and the multitude of his small comforts; his
friends and amusements; the renovation of his linen and hosiery; his
hopes and fears, and his promotion or marriage, were enough to fill the
mother's heart. She was by no means oblivious of Sophia's new interests,
she only thought that they could be put aside until Harry's short visit
was over; and Charlotte's sympathies were also with Harry. "Julius and
Sophia do not want them, mother," she said, "they are sufficient unto
themselves. If I enter a room pre-occupied by them, Sophia sits silent
over her work, with a look of injury on her face; and Julius walks
about, and kicks the stools out of his way, and simply 'looks' me out of
their presence."
After such an expulsion one morning, she put on her bonnet and mantle,
and went into the park. She was hot and trembling with anger, and her
eyes were misty with tears. In the main walk she met Harry. He was
smoking, and pacing slowly up and down under the bare branches of the
oaks. For a moment he also seemed annoyed at her intrusion on his
solitude; but the next one he had tucked her arm through his own, and
was looking with brotherly sympathy into her flushed and troubled face.
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