Arthur's Annoyance

Shortly before Glorious Twelfth, Henrietta's brother Arthur came to visit. It had been Frederick's idea, not Henrietta's, for Frederick got the feeling that Henrietta was somewhat homesick and lonely.

"Really, Henny, it is quite tedious here," her brother remarked after breakfast the following day. "I don't know how you stand it. I should think the only thing that should make it tolerable is hunting. For ladies it must be utterly boring."

Henrietta sighed a little and stopped arranging some flowers to press. It wasn't that she didn't agree. It was just that Arthur, her youngest brother, 2 years older than her, had not only a trying habit of calling her Henny but a most annoying habit of bringing up exactly what was bothering her."You ought to enjoy the quiet leisure of it as much as possible," Henrietta said. Surely that would annoy her brother right back.

"It's quite relaxing." She blushed a little at her lie, for she hardly appreciated the quietness.

"I can't understand how such quietness could be anything but dull," scoffed her brother.

"You must miss the society of others."

"That I do, a little," admitted Henrietta with an inward sigh.

"Then why didn't you come up for the season?"

"I was expecting to be confined" did not seem like something she wished to tell her brother, and so Henrietta was silent.

After a moment, Frederick asked her brother if he should like a game of chess, and Henrietta excused herself. She went to the front hall to fetch her bonnet- she would go see to her garden, she told herself. She could feel tears pricking the backs of her eyelids.