‘I own I earnestly wished it to be drained; but had you any reason for regretting it, my dear?’
‘Ah! you did not know,’ said Sophy. ‘He and I used to be always there.’
‘Why, will you make me say it?’ cried Sophy. ‘Edmund! I mean Edmund! We always called it his pond. He made the little quay for his boats--he used to catch the minnows there. I could go and stand by it, and think he was coming out to play; and now you have had it dried up, and his dear little minnows are all dead,’ and she burst into a passion of tears, that made Maurice cry till Albinia hastily carried him off and returned.
‘My dear, I am sorry it seemed so unkind. I do not think we could have let the pond stay, for it was making the house unhealthy; but if we had talked over it together, it need not have appeared so very cruel and spiteful.’
‘I don’t believe you are spiteful,’ said Sophy, ‘though I sometimes think so.’
The filial compliment was highly gratifying.
‘And now, Sophy,’ she said, ‘that I have told you why we were obliged to have the pond drained, will you tell me what you wanted with baby at Mrs. Osborn’s?’
‘I will tell,’ said Sophy, ‘but you wont like it.’
‘I like anything better than concealment.’
‘Mrs. Osborn said she never saw him. She said you kept him close, and that nobody was good enough to touch him; so I promised I would bring him over, and I kept my word. I know it was wrong--and--I did not think you would ever forgive me.’
‘Mrs. Osborn and all used to be so kind to us when there was nobody else. I wont cast them off because we are too fine and grand for them.’
‘I never thought of that. I only was afraid of your getting into silly ways, and your papa did not wish us to be intimate there. And now you see he was right, for good friends would not have led you to such disobedience--and by stealth, too, what I should have thought you would most have hated.’
Albinia had been far from intending these last words to have been taken as they were. Sophy hid her face, and cried piteously with an utter self-abandonment of grief, that Albinia could scarcely understand; but at last she extracted some broken words. ‘False! shabby! yes--Oh! I have been false! Oh! Edmund! Edmund! Edmund! the only thing I thought I still was! I thought I was true! Oh, by stealth! Why couldn’t I die when I tried, when Edmund did?’