Perhaps the painter could take the portrait sufficiently from
this. It was better after all that Ernest had given up the
Church-how far more wisely God arranges matters for us than ever we
can do for ourselves! She saw it all now-it was Joey who would
become Archbishop of Canterbury and Ernest would remain a layman and
become Prime Minister"... and so on till her daughter told her it
was time to take her medicine.
I suppose this reverie, which is a mere fragment of what actually
ran through Christina's brain, occupied about a minute and a half, but
it, or the presence of her son, seemed to revive her spirits
wonderfully. Ill, dying indeed, and suffering as she was, she
brightened up so as to laugh once or twice quite merrily during the
course of the afternoon. Next day 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.
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