"O, if we could but get mamma there!" said Fred. "What does she say?"

"She knows the house, and says it is a very pleasant one," said
Henrietta; "but that is not an inch--no, not the hundredth part of an
inch--towards going there!"

"It would surely be a good thing for her if she could but be brought to
believe so," said Frederick. "All her attachments are there--her own
home; my father's home."

"There is nothing but the sea to be attached to, here," said Henrietta.
"Nobody can take root without some local interest, and as to
acquaintance, the people are always changing."

"And there is nothing to do," added Fred; "nothing possible but boating
and riding, which are not worth the misery which they cause her, as
Uncle Geoffrey says. It is very, very--"

"Aggravating," said Henrietta, supplying one of the numerous stock of
family slang words.

"Yes, aggravating," said he with a smile, "to be placed under the
necessity of being absurd, or of annoying her!"

"Annoying! O, Fred, you do not know a quarter of what she goes through
when she thinks you are in any danger. It could not be worse if you
were on the field of battle! And it is very strange, for she is not at
all a timid person for herself. In the boat, that time when the wind
rose, I am sure Aunt Geoffrey was more afraid than she was, and I have
seen it again and again that she is not easily frightened."