‘There was little to help her in driving it away,’ said Albinia. ‘Few occupations or interests, and very little change, to prevent it from preying on her spirits.’ ‘True,’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘a narrow education and limited sphere are sad evils in such cases.’ ‘Do you think anything can be a cure for disappointment?’ asked Sophy, in such a solemn, earnest tone, that Albinia was disposed to laugh; but she knew that this would be a dire offence, and was much surprised that Sophy had so far broken through her reserve, as to mingle in their conversation on such a subject. ‘Occupation,’ said Mr. Kendal, but speaking rather as if from duty than from conviction. ‘There are many sources of happiness, even if shipwreck have been made on one venture. Your aunt had few resources to which to turn her mind. Every pursuit or study is a help stored up against the vacuity which renders every care more corroding.’ ‘Well!’ said Sophy, in her blunt, downright way, ‘I think it would take all the spirit out of everything.’ ‘I hope you will never be tried,’ said Mr. Kendal, with a mournful smile, as if he did not choose to confess that she had divined too rightly the probable effect of trouble upon her own temperament. ‘I suppose,’ said Albinia, ‘that the real cure can be but one thing for that, as for any other trouble. I mean, “Thy will be done.” I don’t suppose anything else would give energy to turn to other duties. But it would be more to the purpose to resolve to be more considerate to poor Maria.’ ‘I shall never be impatient with her again,’ said Sophy. And though at first the discovery of so romantic a cause for poor Miss Meadows’s fretfulness dignified it in Sophy’s eyes, yet it did not prove sufficient to make it tolerable when she tormented the window-blinds, teased the fire, was shocked at Sophy’s favourite studies, or insisting on her wishing to see Maria Drury. Nay, the bathos often rendered her petty unconscious provocations the more harassing, and Sophy often felt, in an agony of self-reproach, that she ought to have known herself too well to expect to show forbearance with any one when she was under the influence of ill-temper. In Easter week Mr. Ferrars brought Lucy and Maurice home, and Gilbert came for a short holiday. Gilbert was pleased when he was called to go over the empty houses with his father, Mr. Ferrars, and a mason. Back they came, horrified at the dreadful disrepair, at the narrow area into which such numbers were crowded, and still more at the ill odours which Mr. Ferrars and the mason had gallantly investigated, till they detected the absence of drains, as well as convinced themselves that mending roofs, floors, or windows, would be a mere mockery unless the whole were pulled down.