a livelier affection. Be this as it may, it is
not probable that Doctor Grimshawe would have loved
a child of his own blood, with the coarse characteristics
that he knew both in his race and himself, with nearly
such fervor as this beautiful, slender, yet strenuous,
intelligent, refined boy,—with such a high-bred
air, handling common things with so refined a touch,
yet grasping them so firmly; throwing a natural grace
on all he did. Was he not his father,—he
that took this fair blossom out of the sordid mud
in which he must soon have withered and perished?
Was not this beautiful strangeness, which he so wondered
at, the result of his care?
And little Elsie? did the grim Doctor love her as
well? Perhaps not, for, in the first place, there
was a natural tie, though not the nearest, between
her and Doctor Grimshawe, which made him feel that
she was cast upon his love: a burden which he
acknowledged himself bound to undertake. Then,
too, there were unutterably painful reminiscences and
thoughts, that made him gasp for breath, that turned
his blood sour, that tormented his dreams with nightmares
and hellish phantoms; all of which were connected
with this innocent and happy child; so that, cheerful
and pleasant as she was, there was to the grim Doctor
a little fiend playing about his floor and throwing
a lurid light on the wall, as the shadow of this sun-flickering
child. It is certain that there was always a
pain and horror mixed with his feelings towards Elsie;
he had to forget himself, as it were, and all that
was connected with the causes why she came to be,
before he could love her. Amid his fondness,
when he was caressing her upon his knee, pressing her
to his rough bosom, as he never took the freedom to
press Ned, came these hateful reminiscences, compelling
him to set her down, and corrugating his heavy brows
as with a pang of fiercely resented, strongly borne
pain. Still, the child had no doubt contrived
to make her way into the great gloomy cavern of the
grim Doctor’s heart, and stole constantly further
and further in, carrying a ray of sunshine in her hand
as a taper to light her way, and illuminate the rude
dark pit into which she so fearlessly went.
Doctor Grim [Endnote: 1] had the English faith
in open air and daily acquaintance with the weather,
whatever it might be; and it was his habit, not only
to send the two children to play, for lack of a better
place, in the graveyard, but to take them himself on
long rambles, of which the vicinity of the town afforded
a rich variety. It may be that the Doctor’s
excursions had the wider scope, because both he and
the children were objects of curiosity in the town,
and very much the subject of its gossip: so that
always, in its streets and lanes, the people turned
to gaze, and came to their windows and to the doors
of shops to see this grim, bearded figure, leading
along the beautiful children each by a hand, with
