ly been once
at Church since your accident, and then there was no Holy Communion. So
you must not fancy she is worse, Fred."

"I wish we were confirmed," said Fred, sighing, and presently adding,
"My Prayer-Book, if you please, Henrietta."

"You will only make your head worse, with trying to read the small
print," said she; "I will read anything you want to you."

He chose nevertheless to have it himself, and when he next spoke, it was
to say, "I wish, when Mr. Franklin leaves her, you would ask him to come
to me."

Henrietta did not like the proposal at all, and said all she could
against it; but Fred persisted, and made her at last undertake to ask
Aunt Geoffrey's consent. Even then she would have done her best to miss
the opportunity; but Fred heard the first sounds, and she was obliged to
fetch Mr. Franklin. The conference was not long, and she found no
reason to regret that it had taken place; for Fred did not seem so much
oppressed and weighted down when she again returned to him.

The physician who had been sent for arrived. He had seen Mrs. Frederick
Langford some years before, and well understood her case, and his
opinion was now exactly what Fred had been prepared by his uncle to
expect. It was impossible to conjecture how long she might yet survive:
another attack might come at any moment, and be the last. It might be
deferred for weeks or months, or even now it was possible that she might
rally, and return to her usual state of health.

It was on this possibility, or as she chose to hear the word,
probability, that Henrietta fixed her whole mind. The rest was to her as
if unsaid; she would not hear nor believe it, and shunned anything that
brought the least impression of the kind. The only occasion when she
would avow her fears even to herself, was when she knelt in prayer; and
then how wild and unsubmissive were her petitions! How embittered and
wretched she would feel at her own powerlessness! Then the next minute
she would drive off her fears as by force; call up a vision of a
brightly smiling future; think, speak, and act as if hiding her eyes
would prevent the approach of the enemy she dreaded.

Her grandmamma was as determined as herself to hope; and her grandpapa,
though fully alive to the real state of the case, could not bear to
sadden her before the time, and let her talk on and build schemes for
the future, till he himself almost caught a glance of her hopes, and his
deep sigh was the only