had a fit when he ordered devilled kidneys for breakfast.
He was sure her determination to tuck him up every
night and put out his candle was shortening her life;
and he had made arrangements to share the chambers
of a friend who had gone through school and college
with him. There was no objection to the friend,
who had stayed at Chantry House and was an agreeable,
lively, young man, well reported of, satisfactorily
connected, fairly industrious, and in good society,
so that Griff was likely to be much less exposed
to temptation of the lower kinds than when left to
his own devices, or only with Clarence, who had neither
time nor disposition to share his amusements.
There was a scene with my father, but in private;
and all that came to general knowledge was that Griff
felt himself injured by any implication that he was
given to violent or excessive dissipation, such as
could wreck Ellen’s happiness or his own character.
He declared with all his heart that immediate marriage
would be the best thing for both, and pleaded earnestly
for it; but my father could not have arranged for
it even if the Fordyces would have consented, and
there were matters of business, as well as other
reasons, which made it inexpedient for them to revoke
their decision that the wedding should not take place
before Ellen was of age and Griffith called to the
bar.
So we took our young ladies home, loaded with presents
for their beloved school children, of whom Emily
said she dreamt, as the time for seeing them again
drew near. After all the London enjoyment, it
was pretty to see the girls’ delight in the
fresh country sights and sounds in full summer glory,
and how Ellen proved to have been hungering after
all her dear ones at home. When we left her at
her own door, our last sight of her was in her father’s
arms, little Anne clinging to her dress, mother and
grandfather as close to her as could be—a
perfect tableau of a joyous welcome.
’Unless he give me all in change
I forfeit all things by him;
The risk is terrible and strange.’
Mrs. Browning.
You will be weary of my lengthiness; and perhaps I
am lingering too long over the earlier portion of
my narrative. Something is due to the disproportion
assumed in our memories by the first twenty years
of existence—something, perhaps, to reluctance
to passing from comparative sunshine to shadow.
There was still a period of brightness, but it was
so uneventful that I have no excuse for dwelling
on it further than to say that Henderson, our excellent
curate, had already made a great difference in the
parish, and it was beginning to be looked on as almost
equal to Hillside. The children were devoted
to Emily, who was the source of all the amenities
of their poor little lives. The needlework of
the school was my mother’s pride; and our church
and its services, though you would shudder at them
now, were then thought presumptuously superior ‘for
a country parish.’ They were a real delight
and blessing to us, as well as to many more of the
flock, who still, in their old age, remember and
revere Parson Henderson as a sort of apostle.
