with her son: Anne asks: "But could you be comfortable yourself, to be spending the whole evening away from the poor boy?"

"Yes; you see his papa can, and why should not I? Jemima is so careful; And she could send us word every hour how he was. I really think Charles might as well have told his father we would all come. I am not more alarmed about little Charles now than he is. I was dreadfully alarmed yesterday, but the case is very different to-day."

But then Anne offers to stay with the boy and it is settled in that way. I agree with others that childcare and nursing were not the purview of the men of that time, so I cannot really fault Charles here, but Mary is just exposing her selfishness.