"No: and I do not think she is afraid for you."

"Not as she is for you, Fred; but then boys are so much more precious
than girls, and besides they love to endanger themselves so much, that
I think that is reasonable."

"Uncle Geoffrey thinks there is something nervous and morbid in it,"
said Fred: "he thinks that it is the remains of the horror of the
sudden shock--"

"What? Our father's accident?" asked Henrietta. "I never knew rightly
about that. I only knew it was when we were but a week old."

"No one saw it happen," said Fred; "he went out riding, his horse came
home without him, and he was lying by the side of the road."

"Did they bring him home?" asked Henrietta, in the same low thrilling
tone in which her brother spoke.

"Yes, but he never recovered his senses: he just said 'Mary,' once or
twice, and only lived to the middle of the night!"

"Terrible!" said Henrietta, with a shudder. "O! how did mamma ever
recover it?--at least, I do not think she has recovered it now,--but I
meant live, or be even as well as she is."

"She was fearfully ill for long after," said Fred, "and Uncle Geoffrey
thinks that these anxieties for me are an effect of the shock. He says
they are not at all like her usual character. I am sure it is not to