y
Dr Martin said she was so much better that he almost began to have hopes
of her recovery again. Theobald, whenever this was touched upon as
possible, would shake his head and say: "We can't wish it prolonged," and
then Charlotte caught Ernest unawares and said: "You know, dear Ernest,
that these ups and downs of talk are terribly agitating to papa; he could
stand whatever comes, but it is quite too wearing to him to think half-a-
dozen different things backwards and forwards, up and down in the same
twenty-four hours, and it would be kinder of you not to do it--I mean not
to say anything to him even though Dr Martin does hold out hopes."

Charlotte had meant to imply that it was Ernest who was at the bottom of
all the inconvenience felt by Theobald, herself, Joey and everyone else,
and she had actually got words out which should convey this; true, she
had not dared to stick to them and had turned them off, but she had made
them hers at any rate for one brief moment, and this was better than
nothing. Ernest noticed throughout his mother's illness, that Charlotte
found immediate occasion to make herself disagreeable to him whenever
either doctor or nurse pronounced her mother to be a little better. When
she wrote to Crampsford to desire the prayers of the congregation (she
was sure her mother would wish it, and that the Crampsford people would
be pleased at her remembrance of them), she was sending another letter on
some quite different subject at the same time, and put the two letters
into the wrong envelopes. Ernest was asked to take these letters to the
village post-office, and imprudently did so; when the error came to be
discovered Christina happened to have rallied a little. Charlotte flew
at Ernest immediately, and laid all the blame of the blunder upon his
shoulders.

Except that Joey and Charlotte were more fully developed, the house and
its inmates, organic and inorganic, were little changed since Ernest had
last seen them. The furniture and the ornaments on the chimney-piece
were just as they had been ever since he could remember anything at all.
In the drawing-room, on either side of the fireplace there hung the Carlo
Dolci and the Sassoferrato as in old times; there was the water colour of
a scene on the Lago Maggiore, copied by Charlotte from an original lent
her by her drawing master, and finished under his direction. This was
the picture of which one of the servants had said that it must be good,