They
would at least be comforted in the space of a quarter of an hour!
Carey was completely herself and full of vigour while Mr. Acton was
there, consoling him when he lamented not having taken better care,
and refusing when he tried to persuade her to accompany him back to
Kyve. Neither would Janet return with him, feeling it impossible to
relax such watch as she could keep over the Magnum Bonum papers, even
though she much longed for her brothers.
"I should insist on her going," said Aunt Ellen, "after all she has
gone through."
"I don't think I can," said Carey. "You would not send away your
Jessie?"
Ellen did not quite say that her pretty, sweet, caressing Jessie was
different, but she thought it all the same.
Carey did not fulfil her intentions of going into matters of business
with her brother-in-law that day, for little Armine, always delicate,
had been so much knocked up by his course of adventures, that he
needed her care all the rest of the day. Nor would she have been fit
for anything else, for when his aunt recommended a totally different
treatment for his ailments, she had no spirit to argue, but only
looked pale and determined, being too weary and dejected to produce
her arguments.
Jock was sufficiently tired to be quiescent in the nursery, where she
kept him with her, feeling, in his wistful eyes, and even in poor
little Armine's childish questions, something less like blank
desolation than her recent apathy had been, as if she were waking to
thrills of pain after the numbness of a blow.
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