The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 89: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

78 THE EVIL GENIUS. its lesson without bcoks—bedside practice. Flis opinion declared that the child’s vital power was seriously lowered. ‘‘ Some cause is at work here,” he said to the mother, ‘‘ which I don’t understand. Can you help me?” Mrs. Linley helped him with- out hesitation. ‘‘ My little daughter dearly loved her governess; and her governess has been obliged to leave us.” That was her reply. The doctor wanted to hearno more; he at once advised that Kitty should be taken to the seaside, and that everything which might remind her of the absent friend—books, presents, even articles of clothing likely to revive old associations—should be left at home. A new life, in new air. When, pen, ink, and paper were offered to him, that was the doctor’s prescription. Mrs. Linley consulted her husband on the choice of the sea- side place to which the child should be removed. The blank which Sydney's departure left in the life of the household was felt by the master and mistress of Mount Morven —and felt, unhappily, without any open avowal on either side of what was passing in their minds. In this way the governess became a forbidden subject between them; the husband waited for the wife to set the example of approaching it, and the wife waited for the husband. ‘The trial of temper produced by this state of hesitation, and by the secret doubts which it encouraged, led insensibly to a certain estrangement—which Linley, in par- ticular, was morbidly unwilling to acknowledge. If, when the dinner-hour brought them together, he was silent and dull in his wife’s presence, he attributed it to anxiety on the subject of his brother—then absent on a serious business errand in Lon- don. If he sometimes left the house the first thing in the morning, and only returned at night, it was because the man- agement of the model farm had become one of his duties, in Randal’s absence. Mrs. Linley made no attempt to dispute this view of the altered circumstances in home-life—but she submitted with a mind ill at ease. Secretly fearing that Linley was suffering under Miss Westerfield’s absence, she allowed her- self to hope that Kitty’s father would see a necessity in his own case, for change of scene, and would accompany them to the seaside. ‘‘Won’t you come with us, Herbert?” she suggested, when they had both agreed on the choice of a place. His temper was in a state of constant irritation. Without meaning it, he answered her harmless question sharply. ‘‘How can Igo away with you, when we are losing by the farm, and when there is nobody to check the ruinous expenses but myself !” Mrs. Linley’s thoughts naturally turned to Randal’s prolonged absence. ‘* What can be keeping him all this time in London?” she said. Linley’s failing patience suffered a severe trial. ‘Don’t you know,” he broke out, ‘‘ that I have inherited my poor mother’s property in England, saddled with a lawsuit? Have you never heard of delays and disappointments, and quibbles and false pretenses, encountered by unfortunate wretches like me who are obliged to zo to law? God only COnnichooks,.<o im