He could not, like his wife, have
taken comfort from an inanimate fact; he wanted the satisfaction
of feeling that some one had been in fault, or else this never
could have happened. Poor Ruth did not need his implied
reproaches. When she saw her gentle Elizabeth lying feeble and
languid, her heart blamed her for thoughtlessness so severely as
to make her take all Mr. Bradshaw's words and hints as too light
censure for the careless way in which, to please her own child,
she had allowed her two pupils to fatigue themselves with such
long walks. She begged hard to take her share of nursing. Every
spare moment she went to Mr. Bradshaw's, and asked, with earnest
humility, to be allowed to pass them with Elizabeth; and, as it
was often a relief to have her assistance, Mrs. Bradshaw received
these entreaties very kindly, and desired her to go upstairs,
where Elizabeth's pale countenance brightened when she saw her,
but where Jemima sat in silent annoyance that her own room was
now become open ground for one, whom her heart rose up against,
to enter in and be welcomed. Whether it was that Ruth, who was
not an inmate of the house, brought with her a fresher air, more
change of thought to the invalid, I do not know, but Elizabeth
always gave her a peculiarly tender greeting; and if she had sunk
down into languid fatigue, in spite of all Jemima's endeavours to
interest her, she roused up into animation when Ruth came in with
a flower, a book, or a brown and ruddy pear, sending out the warm
fragrance it retained from the sunny garden-wall at Chapel-house.
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