He did not understand this outburst in the least.

Cherry's restless discontent was an enigma to him.

But he saw that it was real, and that it was a source of trouble and suffering to herself; and he wisely resolved neither to rebuke nor condemn her, but simply to treat it as the symptom of a malady of the body which might be cured by a few months' change and relaxation.
The child was half frightened at her own boldness, and stood trembling before him, Her aunt would have boxed her ears and sent her to bed for such a confession; but her father only looked at her as though he were trying to read her very soul, and Cherry instinctively dropped her eyes, as if fearful that another secret would be read there--a secret which she kept locked up closely in her breast, and would not for the world that any other should know.
"Cherry," said Martin Holt, speaking slowly and quietly, "I know not what to think of thy words, save that thy disordered fancies come from a disordered health.

Thou hast been looking less robust than I like to see thee; wherefore I think it well that thou shouldest have some change in thy life, and see if that will cure thee.

Thy good aunt Prudence Dyson, a younger sister of thy mother, has sent to ask me if I will spare her one of my daughters to help wait upon some young madams staying with my Lady Humbert.