she thought about the matter at all—­ ascribed it to a fact well recognized in Avonsbridge, as in most University towns, that one might as soon expect the skies to fall as for a college lady to cross, save for purely business purposes, the threshold of a High Street tradesman.  The same cause, she concluded, made them absent from her wedding; and when Dr. Grey had said simply, “I shall desire my sisters to send the children,” Christian had inquired no farther.  Only for a second, hanging on the brink of this first meeting with the children—­her husband’s children, hers that were to be—­did her heart fail her, and then she came forward to meet the little group.

Letitia and Arthur were thin, prim-looking, rather plain children; but Oliver was the very picture of a father’s darling, a boy that any childless man would bitterly covet, any childless woman crave and yearn for, with a longing that women alone can understand; a child who, beautiful as most childhood is, had a beauty you rarely see—­ bright, frank, merry, bold; half a Bacchus and half a Cupid, he was a perfect image of the Golden Age.  Though three years old, he was evidently still “the baby,” and rode on his father’s shoulder with a glorious tyranny charming to behold.

“Who’s that?” said he, pointing his fat fingers and shaking his curls that undulated like billows of gold.

“Papa, who’s that?”

Hardly could there have been put by anyone a more difficult question.  Dr. Grey did not answer, but avoided it, taking the whole three to Christian’s side, and bidding them, in a rather nervous voice, to “kiss this lady.”

But that ceremony the two elder obstinately declined.

“I am a big boy, and I don’t like to be kissed,” said Arthur.

“Nurse told us, since we had no mamma of our own, we were not to kiss any body but our aunts,” added Letitia.

Dr. Grey looked terribly annoyed, but Christian said calmly, “Very well, then shake hands only.  We shall be better friends by-and-by.”

They suffered her to touch a little hand of each, passively rather than unwillingly, and let it go.  For a minute or so the boy and girl stood opposite her, holding fast by one another, and staring with all their eyes; but they said nothing more, being apparently very “good” children, that is, children brought up under the old-fashioned rules, which are indicated in the celebrated rhyme,

"Come when you’re called,
Do as you’re bid: 
Shut the door after you,
And you’ll never be chid."

Therefore, on being told to sit down, they gravely took their places on the sofa, and continued to stare.