“I was quite sure you would be glad when it was over,” said Fred.  “I have been reading the service with Aunt Geoffrey, but that is a very different thing.”

“It will all come to you when you go to Church again,” said Henrietta.

“How little I thought that New Year’s Day—!” said Fred.

“Ah! and how little we either of us thought last summer’s holidays!” said Henrietta.  “If it was not for that, I could bear it all better; but it was my determination to come here that seems to have caused everything, and that is the thought I cannot bear.”

“I was talking all that over with Uncle Geoffrey last night,” said Fred, “and he especially warned us against reproaching ourselves with consequences.  He said it was he who had helped my father to choose the horse that caused his death, and asked me if I thought he ought to blame himself for that.  I said no; and he went on to tell me that he did not think we ought to take unhappiness to ourselves for what has happened now; that we ought to think of the actions themselves, instead of the results.  Now my skating that day was just as bad as my driving, except, to be sure, that I put nobody in danger but myself; it was just as much disobedience, and I ought to be just as sorry for it, though nothing came of it, except that I grew more wilful.”

“Yes,” said Henrietta, “but I shall always feel as if everything had been caused by me.  I am sure I shall never dare wish anything again.”

“It was just as much my wish as yours,” said Fred.

“Ah! but you did not go on always trying to make her do what you pleased, and keeping her to it, and almost thinking it a thing of course, to make her give up her wishes to yours.  That was what I was always doing, and now I can never make up for it!”

“O yes,” said Fred, “we can never feel otherwise than that.  To know how she forgave us both, and how her wishes always turned to be the same as ours, if ours were not actually wrong; that is little comfort to remember, now, but perhaps it will be in time.  But don’t you see, Henrietta, my dear, what Uncle Geoffrey means?—­that if you did domineer over her, it was very wrong, and you may be sorry for that; but that you must not accuse yourself of doing all the mischief by bringing her here.  He says he does not know whether it was not, after all, what was most for her comfort, if—­”

“O, Freddy, to have you almost killed!”

“If the thoughts I have had lately will but stay with me when I am well again, I do not think my accident will be a matter of regret, Henrietta.  Just consider, when I was so disobedient in these little things, and attending so little to her or to Uncle Geoffrey, how likely it was that I might have gone on to much worse at school and college.”

“Never, never!” said Henrietta.