For the remainder of the week, though many revolutionary speeches were made in Parliament against the constituted schoolroom authorities, there was, on the whole, better behaviour and less noise.

After that, John took his three elder children on the Continent, keeping the boy with him till Harrow School opened again, and remaining behind with the girls till the first week in November.  During this time he by no means troubled himself about the domestic happiness that he felt he had missed, though he looked forward with fresh interest to the time when his intelligent little daughters would be companions for him, and began, half unconsciously, to idealise the character of his late wife, as if her death had cost him a true companion—­as if, in fact, it had not made him much nobler and far happier.

He was not sorry, when he returned home, to find Valentine eager to get away for a little while, for it had been agreed that the old man should not be left by both of them.  Valentine was improved; his comfortable and independent position in his uncle’s house, where his presence was so evidently regarded as an advantage, had made him more satisfied with himself; and absence from Dorothea had enabled him to take an interest in other women.

He went away in high spirits and capital health, and John subsided into his usual habits, his children continuing to grow about him.  He was still a head taller than his eldest son, but this did not promise to be long the case.  And his eldest girls were so clever, and so forward with their education, that he was increasingly anxious to propitiate Miss Crampton.  It was very difficult to hold the balance even; he scarcely knew how to keep her at a distance, and yet to mark his sense of her value.

“I am going to see the Brandons to-morrow,” he remarked to Miss Christie one day, just before the Christmas holidays.

“Then I wish ye would take little Nancy with ye,” observed the good lady, “for Dorothea was here yesterday.  Emily is come to stay with them, and she drove her over.  Emily wished to see the child, and when she found her gone out for her walk she was disappointed.”

“What did she want with her?” asked John.

“Well, I should have thought it might occur to ye that the sweet lamb had perhaps some sacred reason for feeling attracted towards the smallest creatures she could conveniently get at.”

“Let the nestling bird be dressed up, then,” said John.  “I will drive her over with me to lunch this morning.  Poor Emily! she will feel seeing the child.”

“Not at all.  She has been here twice to see the two little ones.  At first she would only watch them over the blinds, and drop a few tears; but soon she felt the comfort of them, and when she had got a kiss or two, she went away more contented.”

Accordingly John drove his smallest daughter over to Wigfield House, setting her down rosy and smiling from her wraps, and sending her to the ladies, while he went up to Brandon’s peculiar domain to talk over some business with him.