Little Ida reached her eleventh year without either brother or
sister to be her playfellow and companion at home. Immediately
after that period, however, her sister Rosamond was born. Though
Mr. Welwyn's own desire was to have had a son, there were,
nevertheless, great rejoicings yonder in the old house on the
birth of this second daughter. But they were all turned, only a
few months afterward, to the bitterest grief and despair: the
Grange lost its mistress. While Rosamond was still an infant in
arms, her mother died.
Mrs. Welwyn had been afflicted with some disorder after the birth
of her second child, the name of which I am not learned enough in
medical science to be able to remember. I only know that she
recovered from it, to all appearance, in an unexpectedly short
time; that she suffered a fatal relapse, and that she died a
lingering and a painful death. Mr. Welwyn (who, in after years,
had a habit of vaingloriously describing his marriage as "a
love-match on both sides") was really fond of his wife in his own
frivolous, feeble way, and suffered as acutely as such a man
could suffer, during the latter days of her illness, and at the
terrible time when the doctors, one and all, confessed that her
life was a thing to be despaired of. He burst into irrepressible
passions of tears, and was always obliged to leave the sick-room
whenever Mrs.
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