Henrietta's Wish eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 323 pages of information about Henrietta's Wish.

Henrietta's Wish eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 323 pages of information about Henrietta's Wish.

All Henrietta’s consideration for her mother could not prevent her from bursting into tears.  “O mamma, I did not know it would be so like going away from dear grandmamma.”

“Try to feel the truth, my dear, that our being near to her depends on whether we are in our duty or not.”

“Yes, yes, but this place is so full of her!  I do so love it!  I did not know it till now!”

“Yes, we must always love it, my dear child; but we are going to our home, Henrietta, to your father’s home in life and death, and it must be good for us to be there.  With your grandfather, who has wished for us.  Knight Sutton is our true home, the one where it is right for us to be.”

Henrietta still wept bitterly, and strange it was that it should be she who stood in need of consolation, for the fulfilment of her own most ardent wish, and from the very person to whom it was the greatest trial.  It was not, however, self-reproach that caused her tears, that her mother’s calmness prevented her from feeling, but only attachment to the place she was about to leave, and the recollections, which she accused herself of having slighted.  Her mother, who had made up her mind to do what was right, found strength and peace at the moment of trial, when the wayward and untrained spirits of the daughter gave way.  Not that she blamed Henrietta, she was rather gratified to find that she was so much attached to her home and her grandmother, and felt so much with her; and after she had succeeded in some degree in restoring her to composure, they talked long and earnestly over old times and deeper feelings.

CHAPTER IV.

The journey to London was prosperously performed, and Mrs. Frederick Langford was not overfatigued when she arrived at Uncle Geoffrey’s house at Westminster.  The cordiality of their greeting may be imagined, as a visit from Henrietta had been one of the favourite visions of her cousin Beatrice, through her whole life; and the two girls were soon deep in the delights of a conversation in which sense and nonsense had an equal share.

The next day was spent by the two Mrs. Langfords in quiet together, while Henrietta was conducted through a rapid whirl of sight-seeing by Beatrice and Uncle Geoffrey, the latter of whom, to his niece’s great amazement, professed to find almost as much novelty in the sights as she did.  A short December day, though not what they would have chosen, had this advantage, that the victim could not be as completely fagged and worn out as in a summer’s day, and Henrietta was still fresh and in high spirits when they drove home and found to their delight that the two schoolboys had already arrived.

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Henrietta's Wish from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.