My Father and I were now great friends.  I do not doubt that he felt his responsibility to fill as far as might be the gap which the death of my Mother had made in my existence.  I spent a large portion of my time in his study while he was writing or drawing, and though very little conversation passed between us, I think that each enjoyed the companionship of the other.  There were two, and sometimes three aquaria in the room, tanks of sea-water, with glass sides, inside which all sorts of creatures crawled and swam; these were sources of endless pleasure to me, and at this time began to be laid upon me the occasional task of watching and afterwards reporting the habits of animals.

At other times, I dragged a folio volume of the Penny Cyclopaedia up to the study with me, and sat there reading successive articles on such subjects as Parrots, Parthians, Passion-flowers, Passover and Pastry, without any invidious preferences, all information being equally welcome, and equally fugitive.  That something of all this loose stream of knowledge clung to odd cells of the back of my brain seems to be shown by the fact that to this day, I occasionally find myself aware of some stray useless fact about peonies or pemmican or pepper, which I can only trace back to the Penny Cyclopaedia of my infancy.

It will be asked what the attitude of my Father’s mind was to me, and of mine to his, as regards religion, at this time, when we were thrown together alone so much.  It is difficult to reply with exactitude.  But so far as the former is concerned, I thinly that the extreme violence of the spiritual emotions to which my Father had been subjected, had now been followed by a certain reaction.  He had not changed his views in any respect, and he was prepared to work out the results of them with greater zeal than ever, but just at present his religious nature, like his physical nature, was tired out with anxiety and sorrow.  He accepted the supposition that I was entirely with him in all respects, so far, that is to say, as a being so rudimentary and feeble as a little child could be.  My Mother, in her last hours, had dwelt on our unity in God; we were drawn together, she said, elect from the world, in a triplicity of faith and joy.  She had constantly repeated the words:  ’We shall be one family, one song.  One song! one family!’ My Father, I think, accepted this as a prophecy, he felt no doubt of our triple unity; my Mother had now merely passed before us, through a door, into a world of light, where we should presently join her, where all things would be radiant and blissful, but where we three would, in some unknown way, be particularly drawn together in a tie of inexpressible beatitude.  He fretted at the delay; he would have taken me by the hand, and have joined her in the realms of holiness and light, at once, without this dreary dalliance with earthly cares.