Page:The old stone house.djvu/17

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The Five Cousins.
9


Have I faithfully filled her place ? If she had lived, would not her son have grown into a better man, a better Christian ? " Here Aunt Faith again broke down, and buried her face in her hands. Hugh was her darling ; and, although he was now twenty years of age, and so tall and strong that he could easily carry his aunt in his arms, to her he was still the curly-haired boy, Fitzhugh Warrington, whom the dying mother gave to Aunt Faith for her own. " There is Sibyl, also," she thought, as she glanced towards the garden, where her niece sat reading under the arbor ; " she is at the other extreme, as un- like her brother as snow is unlike fire. Sibyl never does wrong. I believe I have never had cause to punish her, even in childhood. But she is so cold, so impassive ; I can never get down as far as her heart ; I am never sure that she loves me." Aunt Faith sighed heavily. Sibyl's coldness was harder for her to bear than Hugh's waywardness.

Then her thoughts turned towards the younger