As he spoke he led the way into the dining-room, and fumbled slowly over a bunch of keys which he drew from his pocket.  Finding the proper key, he put it into the door of the side-board.  “In this side-board, Dr. Peewee, I keep a bottle of old Jamaica, which was sent me by a former correspondent in the West Indies.”  As Dr. Peewee had heard the same remark at least fifty times before, the kindly glistening of his nose must be attributed to some other cause than excitement at this intelligence.

“I like to preserve my friendly relations with my old commercial friends,” continued Mr. Burt, speaking very pompously, and slowly pouring from a half-empty decanter into a tumbler.  “I rarely drink any thing myself—­”

“H’m, ha!” grunted the Doctor.

“—­except a glass of port at dinner.  Yet, not to be impolite, Doctor, not to be impolite, I could not refuse to drink to your very good health and safe return to the bosom of your family.”

And Mr. Burt drained the glass, quite unobservant of the fact that the Rev. Dr. Peewee was standing beside him without glass or old Jamaica.  In truth Mr. Burt had previously been alarmed about the effect of the bottle of port—­which he metaphorically called a glass—­that he had drunk at dinner, and to guard against evil results he had already, that very afternoon, as he was accustomed to say with an excellent humor, been to the West Indies for his health.

“Bless my soul, Doctor, you haven’t filled your glass!  Permit me.”

And the old gentleman poured into the one glass and then into the other.

“And now, Sir,” he added, “now, Sir, let us drink to the health of Mr. Gray, but not of the boys—­ha! ha!”

“No, no, not of the boys?  No, not of the boys.  Thank you, Sir—­thank you.  That is a pleasant liquor, Mr. Burt.  H’m, ha! a very pleasant liquor.  Good-afternoon, Mr. Burt; a very good day, Sir.  H’m, ha!”

As Hope left her grandfather, Mrs. Simcoe was sitting at her window, which looked over the lawn in front of the house upon which Hope presently appeared.  It was already toward sunset, and the tender golden light streamed upon the landscape like a visible benediction.  A few rosy clouds lay in long, tranquil lines across the west, and the great trees bathed in the sweet air with conscious pleasure.

As Hope stood with folded hands looking toward the sunset, she began unconsciously to repeat some of the lines that always lay in her mind like invisible writing, waiting only for the warmth of a strong emotion to bring them legibly out: 

“Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,
  And its fragments are sunk in the wave;
Though I feel that my soul is delivered
  To pain, it shall not be its slave. 
There is many a pang to pursue me;
  They may crush, but they shall not contemn;
They may torture, but shall not subdue me;
  ’Tis of thee that I think, not of them.”