As to Christian herself, she was, even externally, greatly changed. Pale
as she looked, and no wonder, there was a light in her eye and a
firmness in her step very different from those of the weary-looking
woman who used to roam listlessly about the gloomy galleries or sit
silently working in the equally gloomy drawing-room with Miss
Gascoigne and Miss Grey.
Poor Aunt Maria, in her regular daily visit--she dared venture no
more--to the sick-room door, would sometimes say hesitatingly, "My
dear, how well you look still? You are sure you are not breaking down?"
And Christian, grateful for the only kindly woman's face she ever saw
near her, would respond with a smile--sometimes with a kiss, which
always alarmed Aunt Maria exceedingly.
As for Aunt Henrietta, she never came at all. Since the evening when
she had marched out of the room in high dudgeon, she had taken not
the smallest notice of the sick boy. His life or death was apparently of
far less moment to her than her own offended dignity. Had he been left
in her sole charge, she would doubtless have done her duty to him but
to stand by and see another doing it? No! a thousand times no! That
part, insignificant in itself, and yet often one of the very sweetest and
most useful in life's harmonies, familiarly called "second fiddle," was a
part impossible to be played by Miss Gascoigne.
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