Emily was the only person about him who was naturally and ardently hopeful, but she scarcely ever left the child.  He was devoured by anxiety himself, but he learned during the next two days to bless the elastic spirits of youth, and could move about among his other children pleased to see them smile and sometimes to hear them laugh.  They were all getting better; Valentine took care they should not want for amusement, and Crayshaw, who, to do him justice, had not yet heard of little Janie’s death or of Nancy’s extremely precarious state, did not fail to write often, and bestow upon them all the nonsense he could think of.  After his short sojourn in Germany, he had been sent back to Harrow, and there finding letters from the Mortimers awaiting him, had answered one of them as follows:—­

     LINES COMPOSED ON RECEIVING A PORTRAIT OF
     GLADYS WITH BLOB IN HER ARMS.

     I gazed, and O with what a burst
       Of pride, this heart was striving! 
     His tongue was out! that touched me first. 
       My pup! and art thou thriving?

     I sniffed one sniff, I wept one weep
       (But checked myself, however),
     And then I spake, my words went deep,
       Those words were, “Well, I never.”

     Tyrants avaunt! henceforth to me
       Whose Harrow’d heart beats faster,
     The coach shall as the coachman be,
       And Butler count as master.

     That maiden’s nose, that puppy’s eyes,
       Which I this happy day saw,
     They’ve touched the manliest chords that rise
      I’ the breast of Gifford Crayshaw.

John Mortimer was pleased when he saw his girls laughing over this effusion, but anxiety still weighed heavily on his soul—­he did not live on any hope of his own, rather on Emily’s hope and on a kiss.

He perceived how completely but for his father’s companionship he had all his life been alone.  It would have been out of all nature that such a man falling in love thus unaware should have loved moderately.  All the fresh fancies of impassioned tenderness and doubt and fear, all the devotion and fealty that youth wastes often and almost forgets, woke up in his heart to full life at once, unworn and unsoiled.  The strongest natures go down deepest among the hidden roots of feeling, and into the silent wells of thought.

It had not seemed unnatural heretofore to stand alone, but now he longed for something to lean upon, for a look from Emily’s eyes, a touch from her hand.

But she vouchsafed him nothing.  She was not so unconscious of the kiss she had bestowed as he had believed she would be; perhaps this was because he had mistaken its meaning and motive.  It stood in his eyes as the expression of forgiveness and pity,—­he never knew that it was full of regretful renunciation, and the hopelessness of a heart misunderstood.

But now the duties of life began to press upon him, old grey-headed clerks came about the place with messages, young ones brought letters to be signed.  It was a relief to be able to turn, if only for a moment, to these matters, for the strain was great:  little Nancy sometimes better, sometimes worse, was still spoken of as in a precarious state.