‘As you know, I love a walk with an object, and never could abide breaking my back, pottering over a pink with a stem that wont support it, and a calyx that wont hold it.’ ‘And Lucy converted you when I could not!’ ‘If you had known my longing for some wholesome occupation for her, such as could hurt neither herself nor any one else, and the pleasure of seeing her engrossed by anything innocent, making it so easy to gratify her. Why, a new geranium is a constant fund of ecstasy, and I do not believe she was ever so grateful to her father in her life as when he gave her a forcing-frame. Anything is a blessing that makes people contented at home, and takes them out of themselves.’ ‘Lucy is a very nice, pleasant inmate; her ready obligingness and facility of adapting herself make her very agreeable.’ ‘Yes,’ said Albinia, ‘she is the “very woman,” taking her complexion from things around, and so she will go smoothly through the world, and be always preferred to my poor turbid, deep-souled Sophy.’ ‘Are you going to be very angry with me?’ ‘Ah! you do not know Sophy! Poor, dear child! I do so long that she could have--if it were but one day, one hour, of real, free, glowing happiness! I think it would sweeten and open her heart wonderfully just to have known it! If I could but see any chance of it, but I am afraid her health will always be against her, and oh! that dreadful sense of depression! Do you know, Winifred, I do think love would be the best chance. Now, don’t laugh; I do assure you there is no reason Sophy should not be very handsome.’ ‘Quite as handsome as the owl’s children, my dear.’ ‘Well, the owls are the only young birds fit to be seen. But I tell you, Sophy’s profile is as regular as her father’s, and animation makes her eyes beautiful, and she has grown immensely since she has been lying down, so that she will come out without that disproportioned look. If her eyebrows were rather less marked, and her complexion--but that will clear.’ ‘Yes, we will make her a beauty when we are about it.’ ‘And, after all, affection is the great charm, and if she were attached, it would, be so intensely--and happiness would develop so much that is glorious, only hidden down so deep.’ ‘I hope you may find her a male Albinia,’ said Winifred, a little wickedly, ‘but take care. It might be kill or cure, and I fancy when sunshine is attracted by shadow, it is more often as it was in your case than vice versa.’ ‘Take care!’ repeated Albinia, affronted. ‘You don’t fancy I am going beyond a vague wish, do you?’ ‘And rather a premature one. How old is Sophy?’ ‘Towards fourteen, but years older in thought and in suffering.’