“Come, Lucy, my dear, don’t be so down-hearted.
You always have spoiled the boy, and you must go on
spoiling him.”
“Nothing ever did cut me so before, Vincy,”
said the wife, her fair throat and chin beginning
to tremble again, “only his illness.”
“Pooh, pooh, never mind! We must expect
to have trouble with our children. Don’t
make it worse by letting me see you out of spirits.”
“Well, I won’t,” said Mrs. Vincy,
roused by this appeal and adjusting herself with a
little shake as of a bird which lays down its ruffled
plumage.
“It won’t do to begin making a fuss about
one,” said Mr. Vincy, wishing to combine a little
grumbling with domestic cheerfulness. “There’s
Rosamond as well as Fred.”
“Yes, poor thing. I’m sure I felt
for her being disappointed of her baby; but she got
over it nicely.”
“Baby, pooh! I can see Lydgate is making
a mess of his practice, and getting into debt too,
by what I hear. I shall have Rosamond coming
to me with a pretty tale one of these days. But
they’ll get no money from me, I know.
Let his family help him. I never did like
that marriage. But it’s no use talking.
Ring the bell for lemons, and don’t look dull
any more, Lucy. I’ll drive you and Louisa
to Riverston to-morrow.”
They numbered scarce eight
summers when a name
Rose
on their souls and stirred such motions there
As thrill the buds and shape
their hidden frame
At
penetration of the quickening air:
His name who told of loyal
Evan Dhu,
Of
quaint Bradwardine, and Vich Ian Vor,
Making the little world their
childhood knew
Large
with a land of mountain lake and scaur,
And larger yet with wonder
love belief
Toward
Walter Scott who living far away
Sent them this wealth of joy
and noble grief.
The
book and they must part, but day by day,
In
lines that thwart like portly spiders ran
They
wrote the tale, from Tully Veolan.
The evening that Fred Vincy walked to Lowick parsonage
(he had begun to see that this was a world in which
even a spirited young man must sometimes walk for
want of a horse to carry him) he set out at five o’clock
and called on Mrs. Garth by the way, wishing to assure
himself that she accepted their new relations willingly.
He found the family group, dogs and cats included,
under the great apple-tree in the orchard. It
was a festival with Mrs. Garth, for her eldest son,
Christy, her peculiar joy and pride, had come home
for a short holiday—Christy, who held it
the most desirable thing in the world to be a tutor,
to study all literatures and be a regenerate Porson,
and who was an incorporate criticism on poor Fred,
a sort of object-lesson given to him by the educational
mother. Christy himself, a square-browed, broad-shouldered
