After anxiously debiting this point for nearly an hour, and deciding first on one line of conduct, and then on the other, at least six different times within that period, she at last determined to await his coming; and concealing the doubts and fears which worried her by confining herself to her room under pretence of headach, the three girls were left to pass the remainder of the day by themselves, when, as may easily be imagined, the important events of the morning were fully discussed among them. Fanny, after the motives of the visit to Oakley had been fully explained to her, gave it as her opinion that Helen was wrong in going without the consent of her mother, but that her intention might plead in atonement for it. But her indignation at hearing of the pertinacious obstinacy of Sir Gilbert was unbounded. "Oh! how my poor father was deceived in him!" she exclaimed. "He must have a truly bad heart to forsake and vilify my mother at the time she most wants the assistance of a friend. For you know there is business, Helen, relative to the will, and the property, and all that--Sir Gilbert understands it all,--hard-hearted wretch! and I doubt not he thinks he shall crush poor mamma to the dust by thus leaving her, as he believes, without a friend. But, thank God! he will find he is mistaken." "What do you mean, Fanny?" said Rosalind sharply. "I mean, Rosalind, that mamma is _not_ without a friend," replied Fanny with emphasis. "It has pleased God in his mercy to send her one when she most needed it." "I trust that God will restore to her and to us the old, well known, and trusted friend of my father," said Helen gravely. "On none other can we rest our hope for counsel and assistance, when needed, so safely." "Even if you were right, Helen," replied her sister, "there would be small comfort in your observation. Of what advantage to mamma, or to us, would the good qualities of Sir Gilbert he, if it be his will, as it evidently is, to estrange himself from us? What a contrast is the conduct of Mr. Cartwright to his!" "Mr. Cartwright!" cried Rosalind, distorting her pretty features into a grimace that intimated abundant scorn,--"Mr. Cartwright! There is much consolation, to be sure, in what an acquaintance of yesterday can do or say, for the loss of such an old friend as Sir Gilbert Harrington!" "It would be a sad thing for poor mamma if there were not," replied Fanny. "Of what advantage to her, I ask you, is the long standing of her acquaintance with Sir Gilbert, if his caprice and injustice are to make him withdraw himself at such a time as this?--And how unreasonable and unchristianlike would it be, Rosalind, were she to refuse the friendship of Mr. Cartwright, because she has not known him as long?" "The only objection I see to her treating Mr. Cartwright as a confidential friend is, that she does not know him at all," said Rosalind.