‘Thank you,’ said Albinia, ‘some evening perhaps I may come, since you are so kind, but I don’t think I can leave this poor twisted arm to itself.’ Miss Meadows evaporated in hopes that Sophy would be sensible of--and assurances that Mrs. Kendal was a great deal too--with finally, ‘Good-bye, Sophy, I wish I could have told grandmamma that you had shown some feeling.’ ‘I believe,’ said Albinia, ‘that you would only be too glad if you knew how.’ Sophy gasped. Albinia could not help feeling indignant at the misjudged persecution; and yet it seemed to render the poor child more entirely her own, since all the world besides had turned against her. ‘Kiss her, Maurice,’ she said, holding the little fellow towards her. That scratched arm of hers has spared your small brains from more than you guess.’ Sophy’s first impulse was to hide her face, but he thought it was bo-peep, caught hold of her fingers, and laughed; then came to a sudden surprised stop, and looked up to his mother, when the countenance behind the screen proved sad instead of laughing. ‘Ah! baby, you had better have done with me,’ Sophy said, bitterly; ‘you are the only one that does not hate me yet, and you don’t know what I have done to you.’ ‘I know some one else that cares for you, my poor Sophy,’ said Albinia, ‘and who would do anything to make you feel it without distressing you. If you knew how I wish I knew what to do for you!’ ‘It is no use,’ said Sophy, moodily; ‘I was born to be a misery to myself and every one else.’ ‘What has put such a fancy in your head, my dear?’ said Albinia, nearly smiling. ‘Grandmamma’s Betty said so, she used to call me Peter Grievous, and I know it is so. It is of no good to bother yourself about me. It can’t be helped, and there’s an end of it.’ ‘There is not an end of it, indeed!’ cried Albinia. ‘Why, Sophy, do you suppose I could bear to leave you so?’ ‘I’m sure I don’t see why not.’ ‘Why not?’ continued Albinia, in her bright, tender voice. ‘Why, because I must love you with all my heart. You are your own dear papa’s child, and this little man’s sister. Yes, and you are yourself, my poor, sad, lonely child, who does not know how to bring out the thoughts that prey on her, and who thinks it very hard to have a stranger instead of her own mother. I know I should have felt so.’ ‘But I have behaved so ill to you,’ cried Sophy, as if bent on repelling the proffered affection. ‘I would not like you, and I did not like you. Never! and I have gone against you every way I could.’ ‘And now I love you because you are sorry for it.’ ‘I’m not’--Sophy had begun, but the words turned into ‘Am I?’ ‘I think you are,’ and with the sweetest of tearful smiles, she put an arm round the no longer resisting Sophy, and laying her cheek against the little brother’s, she kissed first one and then the other. ‘I can’t think why you are so,’ said Sophy, still struggling against the undeserved love, though far more feebly. ‘I shall never deserve it.’