"I believe that I was a comfort to her, and a relief to Harris; and
Fanny, also, rejoiced to see me. I was with Evelyn several weeks, and
the days passed pleasantly. I had every indulgence, and the use of all
sorts of toys; dolls I had partly put aside; but there were books, and
pictures, and puzzles; and when I went back to school I was loaded with
them; not only for myself, but for my schoolfellows.
"Evelyn seemed to be pleased to see me delighted with them, but she had
no pleasure in them herself, any more than I have now; and once, when
Harris said: 'Come, Miss Vaughan, why can't you play with these things
as Miss Reynolds does?' she answered: 'Ah, Harris! what have I to do
with these? I know what is coming.'
"'What is it?' I inquired.
"'Don't ask her, Miss Reynolds,' said Harris hastily; 'Miss Vaughan
knows that she should not talk of these things.'
"'Oh, let me talk of them, and then I shall be more easy!' Evelyn
answered. 'It is because I must not that I am so unhappy. Why have you
put away my Bible and the other good books?'
"'Because your aunts and the doctors say you read them till you have
made yourself quite melancholy, Miss Vaughan; and so they have been
taken away, but not by me. I have not got them. You must not blame me
for what others have done; you know my foolish fondness, and that I can
deny you nothing in my power to grant.'
"We had two or three conversations of this kind; but Harris watched us
so closely, that Miss Vaughan never had an opportunity of talking to me
by ourselves; so that we never renewed, during those holidays, the
subjects we had sometimes talked of at the Abbey.
"I stayed at that time about six weeks with Miss Vaughan; and as she
appeared to be much better and more cheerful, I was sent back to
school, with a promise from my governesses that, if Miss Vaughan
desired it, I was to go to her again at the shortest notice.
"The spring that year was early, and some of the days in March were so
fine, that the Mistresses Vaughan presumed to take their niece out in
the coach without medical advice. Deeply and long did the old ladies
lament their imprudence; but probably this affliction was the first
which ever really caused them to feel.
"About six days after the last of these airings, the coach came to the
school, bringing a request that I should be sent back in it instantly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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