In the autumn a strange thing happened.  When we had taken my grandfather to the Hall in June, his dotage seemed to settle upon him.  He became a trembling old man, at times so peevish that we were obliged to summon with an effort what he had been.  He was suspicious and fault-finding with Scipio and the other servants, though they were never so busy for his wants.  Mrs. Willis’s dainties were often untouched, and he would frequently sit for hours between slumber and waking, or mumble to himself as I read the prints.  But about the time of the equinoctial a great gale came out of the south so strongly that the water rose in the river over the boat landing; and the roof was torn from one of the curing-sheds.  The next morning dawned clear, and brittle, and blue.  To my great surprise, Mr. Carvel sent for me to walk with him about the place, that he might see the damage with his own eyes.  A huge walnut had fallen across the drive, and when he came upon it he stopped abruptly.

“Old friend!” he cried, “have you succumbed?  After all these years have you dropped from the weight of a blow?” He passed his hand caressingly along the trunk, and scarce ever had I seen him so affected.  In truth, for the instant I thought him deranged.  He raised his cane above his shoulder and struck the bark so heavily that the silver head sunk deep into the wood.  “Look you, Richard,” he said, the water coming into his eyes, “look you, the heart of it is gone, lad; and when the heart is rotten ’tis time for us to go.  That walnut was a life friend, my son.  We have grown together,” he continued, turning from me to the giant and brushing his cheeks, “but by God’s good will we shall not die so, for my heart is still as young as the days when you were sprouting.”

And he walked back to the house more briskly than he had come, refusing, for the first time, my arm.  And from that day, I say, he began to mend.  The lacing of red came again to his cheeks, and before we went back to town he had walked with me to Master Dingley’s tavern on the highroad, and back.

We moved into Marlboro’ Street the first part of November.  I had seen my lady off for England, wearing my faded flowers, the panniers of the fine gentleman in a neglected pile at her cabin door.  But not once had she deigned to write me.  It was McAndrews who told me of her safe arrival.  In Annapolis rumours were a-flying of conquests she had already made.  I found Betty Tayloe had had a letter, filled with the fashion in caps and gowns, and the mention of more than one noble name.  All of this being, for unknown reasons, sacred, I was read only part of the postscript, in which I figured:  “The London Season was done almost before we arrived,” so it ran.  “We had but the Opportunity to pay our Humble Respects to their Majesties; and appear at a few Drum-Majors and Garden Fetes.  Now we are off to Brighthelmstone, and thence, so Papa says, to Spa and the Continent until the end of January.  I am pining for news of Maryland, dearest Betty.  Address me in care of Mr. Ripley, Barrister, of Lincoln’s Inn, and bid Richard Carvel write me.”