The voice faltered, struggled to go on, and melted away behind the handkerchief. Then--'O Mr. Audley, I am so sorry--'
'That's exactly what I don't want you to be, Cherry.'
'Oh, but it was so careless,' and there was another flood.
Or, 'Don't you see, Cherry, you should not have put the negative sign to that equation. My dear Cherry, what have I said?'
'We shall have you a perfect Niobe, if you go on at this rate, Cherry. Really, we must not have these lessons, if they excite you so much.'
'Oh! that would be the worst punishment of all!' and the weeping became so piteously violent, that the Curate looked on in distressed helplessness.
'I know it is very tiresome of me; I would help it, if I could--indeed I would.' And she cried the more because she _had_ cried.
Or, as he came in from the town, he would hear ominous sounds, that his kind heart would not let him neglect, and would find Cherry sitting on the landing-place in a paroxysm of weeping. She always crept out of her mother's room on these occasions, for the sight of tears distressed and excited Mrs. Underwood; and the poor child, quite unable, in her hysterical condition, to drag herself alone up that steep stair, had no alternative but to sit, on what Mr. Audley called her stool of repentance, outside the door, till she had sobbed herself into exhaustion and calm--or till either Sibby scolded her, or he heard her confession.
She had been 'so cross' to Bernard, or to Angel--or, once or twice, even to Mamma. She had made an impatient answer when interrupted in her lessons or in a dream over a drawing; she had been reluctant to exert herself when wanted. She had scolded fretfully--or snatched things away angrily, when the little ones were troublesome; and every offence of this sort was bewailed with an anguish of tears; that, by weakening her spirits and temper, really rendered the recurrence more frequent. 'The one thing they trust to me, I fail in!'
He was very kind to her. He did not yield to the mannish loathing for girlish tears that began to seize on him, after the first two or three occasions. He thought and studied--tried comfort, and fancied it relaxed her--tried rebuke, and that made it worse; tried the showing her François de Sales' admirable counsel to Philothée, to be '_doux envers soi_,' and saw she appreciated and admired it; but she was not an atom more _douce envers soi_ when she had next spoken peevishly.