“If I can but make him happy!  If what is left to me is only enough to make him happy!”

These broken sentences were repeated more than once, and then she stood silent as though in a dream still.

When she heard the door open, she turned round with that still, gentle, passive smile which had welcomed Dr. Grey on every day of his brief “courting” days.  It never altered, though he entered in a character not the pleasantest for a bridegroom, with his three little children, one on either side of him, and the youngest in his arms.

But there are some men, and mostly those grave, shy, and reserved men, who have always the truest and tenderest hearts, whom nothing transforms so much as to be with children, especially if the children are their own.  They are given to hiding a great deal, but the father in them can not be hid.  Why should it?  Every man who has anything really manly in his nature knows well that to be a truly good father, carrying out by sober reason and conscience those duties which in the mother spring from instinct, is the utmost dignity to which his human nature can attain.

Miss Oakley, like the rest of Avonsbridge, had long-known Dr. Grey’s history; how he had married early, or (ill-natured report said) been married by, a widow lady, very handsome, and some years older than himself.  However, the sharpest insinuations ever made against their domestic bliss were that she visited a good deal, while he was deeply absorbed in his studies.  And when, after a good many childless years, she brought him a girl and boy, he became excessively fond of his children.  Whether this implied that he had been disappointed in his wife, nobody could tell.  He certainly did not publish his woes.  Men seldom do.  At the birth of a third child Mrs. Grey died, and then the widower’s grief; though unobtrusive, was sufficiently obvious to make Avonsbridge put all unkindly curiosity aside, and conclude that the departed lady must have been the most exemplary and well-beloved of wives and mothers.

All this, being town’s talk, Christian already knew; more she had never inquired, not even when she was engaged to him.  Nor did Dr. Grey volunteer any information.  The strongest and most soothing part of his influence over her was his exceeding silence.  He had never troubled her with any great demonstrations, nor frightened her with questionings.  From the time of their engagement he had seemed to take every thing for granted, and to treat her tenderly, almost reverently, without fuss or parade, yet with the consideration due from a man to his future wife; so much so that she had hardly missed, what, indeed, in her simplicity she hardly expected, the attention usually paid to an affianced bride from the relatives of her intended.  Dr. Grey had only two, his own sister and his late wife’s.  These ladies, Miss Gascoigne and Miss Grey, had neither called upon nor taken the least notice of Miss Oakley.  But Miss Oakley—­if