A few very energetic words, uttered so low as to be inaudible to all but Balfour himself, closed this address.
“On my word of honor, – on my sacred word of honor, – Mr. Balfour,” said she, aloud as she placed one foot on the step, “Caroline saw it, – saw it with her own eyes. Don’t forget all I have said; don’t drop that envelope; be sure you come to see me.” And she was gone.
“Give me five minutes to recover myself,” said Balfour, as he entered Se well’s room, and threw himself on a sofa; “such a ‘breather’ as that I have not had for many a day.”
“I heard a good deal of it,” said Sewell, coolly. “She screams, particularly when she means to be confidential; and all that about my wife must have reached the gardener in the shrubbery. Where is she off to?”
“To Dublin. She means to see his Excellency and the Chief Baron; she says she can’t leave Ireland till she has unmasked all your wickedness.”
“She had better take a house on a lease then; did you tell her so?”
“I did nothing but listen, – I never interposed a word. Indeed, she won’t let one speak.”
“I ‘d give ten pounds to see her with the Chief Baron. It would be such a ‘close thing.’ All his neat sparring would go for nothing against her; for though she hits wide, she can stand a deal of punishment without feeling it.”
“She ‘ll do you mischief there.”
“She might,” said he, more thoughtfully. “I think I ‘ll set my mother at her; not that she ‘ll have a chance, but just for the fun of the thing. What ‘s the letter in your hand?”
“Oh, a commission she gave me. I was to distribute this amongst your household;” and he drew forth a banknote. “Twenty pounds! you have no objection to it, have you?”
“I know nothing about it; of course you never hinted such a thing to me;” and with this he arose and left the room.
CHAPTER XXXVII. A STORMY MOMENT
Within a week after the first letter came a second from Cagliari. It was but half a dozen lines from Tom himself.
“They are sending me off to a place called Maddalena, dearest Lucy, for change of air The priest has given me his house, and I am to be Robinson Crusoe there, with an old hag for Friday, – how I wish for you! Sir Brook can only come over to me occasionally. Look out for three rocks – they call them islands – off the N. E. of Sardinia; one of them is mine. – Ever your own,
“Tom L.”
Lucy hastened down with this letter in her hand to her grandfather’s room, but met Mr. Haire on the stairs, who whispered in her ear, “Don’t go in just yet, my dear; he is out of sorts this morning; Lady Lendrick has been here, and a number of unpleasant letters have arrived, and it is better not to disturb him further.”
“Will you take this note,” said she, “and give it to him at any fitting moment? I want to know what I shall reply, – I mean, I ‘d like to hear if grandpapa has any kind message to send the poor fellow.”
“Leave it with me. I ‘ll take charge of it, and come up to tell you when you can see the Judge.” Thus saying, he passed on, and entered the room where the Chief Baron was sitting. The curtains were closely drawn, and in one of the windows the shutters were closed, – so sensitive to light was the old man in his periods of excitement. He lay back in a deep chair, his eyes closed, his face slightly flushed, breathing heavily, and the fingers of one hand twitching slightly at moments; the other was held by Beattie, as he counted the pulse. “Dip that handkerchief in the cold lotion, and lay it over his forehead,” whispered Beattie to Haire.
“Speak out, sir; that muttering jars on my nerves, and irritates me,” said the Judge, in a slow firm tone.
“Come,” said Beattie, cheerfully, “you are better now; the weakness has passed off.”
“There is no weakness in the case, sir,” said the old man, sitting bolt upright in the chair, as he grasped and supported himself by the arms. “It is the ignoble feature of your art to be materialist. You can see nothing in humanity but a nervous cord and a circulation.”
“The doctor’s ministry goes no further,” said Beattie, gently.
“Your art is then but left-handed, sir. Where ‘s Haire?”
“Here, at your side,” replied Haire.
“I must finish my story, Haire. Where was it that I left off? Yes; to be sure, – I remember now. This boy of Sewell’s – Reginald Victor Sewell – was, with my permission, to take the name of Lendrick, and be called Reginald Victor Sewell Lendrick.”
“And become the head of your house?”
“The head of my house, and my heir. She did not say so, but she could not mean anything short of it.”
“What has your son done to deserve this?” asked Haire, bluntly.
“My son’s rights, sir, extend but to the modest fortune I inherited from my father. Whatever other property I possess has been acquired by my own ability and labor, and is mine to dispose of.”
“I suppose there are other rights as well as those of the statute-book?”
“Listen to this, Beattie,” cried the old Judge, with a sparkle of the eye, – “listen to this dialectician, who discourses to me on the import of a word. It is not generous I must say, to come down with all the vigor of his bright, unburdened faculties upon a poor, weak, and suffering object like myself. You might have waited, Haire, till I had at least the semblance of power to resist you.”
“What answer did you give her?” asked Haire, bluntly.
“I said, – what it is always safe to say, – ‘Le roi s’avisera.’ Eh, Beattie? this is the grand principle of your own craft. Medicine is very little else than ‘the wisdom of waiting.’ I told her,” continued he, “I would think of it, – that I would see the child. ‘He is here,’ said she, rising and leaving the room, and in a few moments returned, leading a little boy by the hand, – a very noble-looking child, I will say, with a lofty head and a bold brow. He met me as might a prince, and gave his hand as though it were an honor he bestowed. What a conscious power there is in youth! Ay, sirs, that is the real source of all the much-boasted vigor and high-heartedness. Beattie will tell us some story of arterial action or nervous expansion; but the mystery lies deeper. The conscious force of a future development imparts a vigor that all the triumphs of after life pale before.”
“‘Fiat justitia, ruât coelum,’” said Haire, – “I’d not provide for people out of my own family.”
“It is a very neat though literal translation, sir, and, like all that comes from you, pointed and forcible.”
“I’d rather be fair and honest than either,” said Haire, bluntly.
“I appeal to you, Beattie, and I ask if I have deserved this;” and the old Judge spoke with an air of such apparent sincerity as actually to impose upon the doctor. “The sarcasms of this man push my regard for him to the last intrenchment.”
“Haire never meant it; he never intended to reflect upon you,” said Beattie, in a low tone.
“He knows well enough that I did not,” said Haire, half sulky; for he thought the Chief was pushing his raillery too far.
“I ‘m satisfied,” said the Judge, with a sigh. “I suppose he can’t help it. There are fencers who never believe they have touched you till they see the blood. Be it so; and now to go back. She went away and left the child with me, promising to take him up after paying a visit she had to make in the neighborhood. I was not sorry to have the little fellow’s company. He was most agreeable, and, unlike Haire, he never made me his butt. Well, I have done; I will say no more on that head. I was actually sorry when she came to fetch him, and I believe I said so. What does that grunt mean, Haire?”
“I did not speak.”
“No, sir; but you uttered what implied an ironical assent, – a nisi prius trick, – like the leer I have seen you bestow upon the jury-box. How hard it is for the cunning man to divest himself of the subtlety of his calling!”
“I want to hear how it all ended,” muttered Haire.
“You shall hear, sir, if you will vouchsafe me a little patience. When men are in the full vigor of their faculties, they should be tolerant to those footsore and weary travellers who, like myself, halt behind and delay the march. But bear in mind, Haire, I was not always thus. There was a time when I walked in the van. Ay, sir, and bore myself bravely too. I was talking with that child when they announced Mr. Balfour, the private secretary, a man most distasteful to me; but I told them to show him in, curious, indeed, to hear what new form of compromise they were about to propose to me. He had come with a secret and confidential message from the Viceroy, and really seemed distressed at having to speak before a child of six years old, so mysterious and reserved was he. He made a very long story of it, – full an hour; but the substance was this: The Crown had been advised to dispute my right of appointment to the registrarship, and to make a case for a jury; but – mark the ‘but’ – in consideration for my high name and great services, and in deference to what I might be supposed to feel from an open collision with the Government, they were still willing for an accommodation, and would consent to ratify any appointment I should make, other than that of the gentleman I had already named, – Colonel Sewell.
“Self-control is not exactly the quality for which my friends give me most credit. Haire, there, will tell you I am a man of ungovernable temper, and who never even tried to curb his passion; but I would hope there is some injustice in this award. I became a perfect dove in gentleness, as I asked Balfour for the reasons which compelled his Excellency to make my stepson’s exclusion from office a condition. ‘I am not at liberty to state them,’ was the cool reply. ‘They are personal, and, of course, delicate?’ asked I, in a tone of submission, and he gave a half assent in silence. I concurred, – that is, I yielded the point. I went even further. I hinted, vaguely of course, at the courteous reserve by which his Excellency was willing to spare me such pain as an unpleasant disclosure – if there were such – might occasion me. I added, that old men are not good subjects for shocks; and I will say, sirs, that he looked at me as I spoke with a compassionate pity which won all my gratitude! Ay, Beattie, and though my veins swelled at the temples, and I felt a strange rushing sound in my ears, I had no fit, and in a moment or two was as calm as I am this instant.
“‘Let me be clear upon this point,’ said I to him. ‘I am to nominate to the office any one except Sewell, and you will confirm such nomination?’ ‘Precisely,’ replied he. ‘Such act on my part in no way to prejudice whatever claim I lay to the appointment in perpetuity, or jeopardize any rights I now assert?’ ‘Certainly not,’ said he. ‘Write it,’ said I, pushing towards him a pen and paper; and so overjoyed was he with his victorious negotiation that he wrote word for word as I dictated. When I came to the name Sewell, I added, ‘To whose nomination his Excellency demurs, on grounds of character and conduct sufficient in his Excellency’s estimation to warrant such exclusion; but which, out of deference to the Chief Baron’s feelings, are not set forth in this negotiation.’ ‘Is this necessary?’ asked he, as he finished writing. ‘It is,’ was my reply; ‘put your name at foot, and the date;’ and he did so.
“I now read over the whole aloud; he winced at the concluding lines, and said, ‘I had rather, with your permission, erase these last words; for though I know the whole story, and believe it too, there ‘s no occasion for entering upon it here.’
“As he spoke, I folded the paper and placed it in my pocket. ‘Now, sir,’ said I, ‘let me hear the story you speak of.’ ‘I cannot. I told you before I was not at liberty to repeat it.’ I insisted, and he refused. There was a positive altercation between us and he raised his voice in anger, and demanded back from me the paper which he said I had tricked him into writing. I will not say that he meant to use force, but he sprang from his chair and came towards me with such an air of menace that the boy, who was playing in the corner, rushed at him and struck him with his drumstick, saying, ‘You sha’n’t beat grandpapa!’ I believe I rang the bell; yes, I rang the bell sharply. The child was crying when they came. I was confused and flurried. Balfour was gone.”
“And the paper?” asked Haire.
“The paper is here, sir,” said he, touching his breastpocket. “The country shall ring with it, or such submission shall I exact as will bring that Viceroy and his minions to my feet in abject contrition. Were you to ask me now, I know not what terms I would accept of.”
“I would rather you said no more at present,” said Beattie. “You need rest and quietness.”
“I need reparation and satisfaction, sir; that is what I need.”
“Of course – of course; but you must be strong and well to enforce it,” said Beattie.
“I told Lady Lendrick to leave the child with me. She said she would bring him back to-morrow. I like the boy. What does my pulse say, Beattie?”
“It says that all this talking and agitation are injurious to you, – that you must be left alone.”
The old man sighed faintly, but did not speak.
“Haire and I will take a turn in the garden, and be within call if you want us,” said Beattie.
“Wait a moment, – what was it I had to say? You are too abrupt, Beattie; you snap the cords of thought by such rough handling, and we old men lose our dexterous knack of catching the loose ends, as we once did. There, there – leave me now; the skein is all tangled in hopeless confusion.” He waved his hand in farewell, and they left him.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. A LADY’S LETTER
“Lucy asked me to show him this note from her brother,” said Haire, as he strolled with Beattie down the lawn. “It was no time to do so. Look over it and say what you advise.”
“The boy wants a nurse, not a doctor,” said Beattie. “A little care and generous diet would soon bring him round; but they are a strange race, these Lendricks. They have all the stern qualities that brave danger, and they are terribly sensitive to some small wound to their self-love. Let that young fellow, for instance, only begin to feel that he is forgotten or an outcast, and he ‘ll droop at once. A few kind words, and a voice he loved, now, will do more than all my art could replace a little later.”
“You mean that we ought to have him back here?” asked Haire, bluntly.
“I mean that he ought to be where he can be carefully and kindly treated.”
“I ‘ll tell the Chief you think so. I ‘ll say that you dropped the remark to myself, of course, – never meaning to dictate anything to him.”
Beattie shook his head in sign of doubt.
“I know him well, better perhaps than any one, and I know there’s no more generous man breathing; but he must not be coerced, – he must not be even influenced, where the question be one for a decision. As he said to me one day, ‘I want the evidence, sir, I don’t want your speech to it.’”
“There ‘s the evidence, then,” said Beattie, – “that note with its wavering letters, weak and uncertain as the fingers that traced them, – show him that. Say, if you like, that I read it and thought the lad’s case critical. If, after that, he wishes to talk to me on the subject, I ‘m ready to state my opinion. If the boy be like his father, a few tender words and a little show of interest for him will be worth all the tonics that ever were brewed.”
“It’s the grandfather’s nature too; but the world has never known it, – probably never will know it,” said Haire.
“In that I agree with you,” said Beattie, dryly.
“He regards it as a sort of weakness when people discover any act of generosity or any trait of kindliness about him; and do you know,” added he, confidentially, “I have often thought that what the world regarded as irritability and sharpness was nothing more nor less than shyness, – just shyness.”
“I certainly never suspected that he was the victim of that quality.”
“No, I imagine not. A man must know him as I do to-understand it. I remember one day, long, long ago, I went so far as to throw out a half hint that I thought he labored under this defect; he only smiled and said, ‘You suspect me of diffidence. I am diffident, – no man more so, sir; but it is of the good or great qualities in other men.’ Was n’t that a strange reply? I never very clearly understood it, – do you?”
“I suspect I do; but here comes a message to us.”
Haire spoke a word with the servant, and then, turning: to Beattie, said: “He wants to see me. I ‘ll just step in, and be back in a moment.”
Beattie promised not to leave till he returned, and strolled along by the side of a little brook which meandered tastefully through the greensward. He had fallen into a revery, – a curious inquiry within himself whether it were a boon or an evil for a man to have acquired that sort of influence over another mind which makes his every act and word seem praiseworthy and excellent. “I wonder is the Chief the better or the worse for this indiscriminating attachment? Does it suggest a standard to attain to, or does it merely minister to self-love and conceit? Which is it? which is it?” cried he, aloud, as he stood and gazed on the rippling rivulet beside him.
“Shall I tell you?” said a low, sweet voice; and Lucy Lendrick slipped her arm within his as she spoke, – “shall I tell you, doctor?”
“Do, by all means.”
“A little of both, I opine. Mind,” said she, laughing, “I have not the vaguest notion of what you were balancing in your mind, but somehow I suspect unmixed good or evil is very rare, and I take my stand on a compromise. Am I right?”
“I scarcely know, but I can’t submit the case to you. I have an old-fashioned prejudice against letting young people judge their seniors. Let us talk of something else. What shall it be?”
“I want to talk to you of Tom.”
“I have just been speaking to Haire about him. We must get him back here, Lucy, – we really must.”
“Do you mean here, in this house, doctor?”
“Here, in this house. Come, don’t shake your head, Lucy. I see the necessity for it on grounds you know nothing of. Lady Lendrick is surrounding your grandfather with her family, and I want Tom back here just that the Chief should see what a thorough Lendrick he is. If your grandfather only knew the stuff that’s in him, he ‘d be prouder of him than of all his own successes.”
“No, no, no, – a thousand times no, doctor! It would never do, – believe me, it would never do. There are things which a girl may submit to in quiet obedience, which in a man would require subserviency. The Sewells, too, are to be here on Saturday, and who is to say what that may bring forth?”
“She wrote to you,” said the doctor, with a peculiar significance in his voice.
“Yes, a strange sort of note too; I almost wish I could show it to you, – I ‘d so like to hear what you ‘d say of the spirit of the writer.”
“She told me she would write,” said he again, with a more marked meaning in his manner.
“You shall see it,” said she, resolutely; “here it is;” and she drew forth the letter and handed it to him. For an instant she seemed as if about to speak, but suddenly, as if changing her mind, she merely murmured, “Read it, and tell me what you think of it.” The note ran thus: —
“My dearest Lucy, – We are to meet to-morrow, and I hope and trust to meet like sisters who love each other. Let me make one brief explanation before that moment arrives. I cannot tell what rumors may have reached you of all that has happened here. I know nothing of what people say, nor have I the faintest idea how our life may have been represented. If you knew me longer and better, you would know that I neither make this ignorance matter of complaint nor regret. I have lived about long enough to take the world at its just value, and not to make its judgments of such importance as can impair my self-esteem and my comfort. It would, however, have been agreeable to me to have known what you may have heard of me – of us – as it is not impossible I might have felt the necessity to add something, – to correct something, – perhaps to deny something. I am now in the dark, and pray forgive me if I stumble rudely against you, where I only meant to salute you courteously.
“You at least know the great disaster which befell here. Dr. Beattie has told you the story, – what more he may have said I cannot guess. If I were to wait for our meeting, I should not have to ask you. I should read it in your face, and hear it in every accent of your voice; but I write these few lines that you may know me at once in all frankness and openness, and know that if you be innocent of my secret, I at least have yours in my keeping. Yes, Lucy, I know all; and when I say all, I mean far more than you yourself know.
“If I were treacherous, I would not make this avowal to you. I should be satisfied with the advantage I possessed, and employ it to my benefit. Perhaps with any other woman than yourself I should play this part, – with you I neither can nor will. I will declare to you frankly and at once, you have lost the game and I have won it. That I say this thus briefly, is because in amplifying I should seem to be attempting to explain what there is no explaining. That I say it in no triumph, my own conscious inferiority to you is the best guarantee. I never would have dreamed of a rivalry had I been a girl. It is because I cannot claim the prize I have won it. It is because my victory is my misery I have gained it. I think I know your nature well enough to know that you will bear me no ill-will. I even go so far as to believe I shall have your compassion and your sympathy. I need them more, far more, than you know of. I could tell you that had matters fallen out differently it would not have been to your advantage, for there were obstacles – family obstacles – perfectly insurmountable. This is no pretence: on my honor I pledge to the truth of what I say. So long as I believed they might be overcome, I was in your interest, Lucy. You will not believe me, will you, if I swear it? Will you if I declare it on my knees before you?
“If I have not waited till we met to say these things, it is that we may meet with open hearts, in sorrow, but in sincerity. When I have told you everything, you will see that I have not been to blame. There may be much to grieve over, but there is nothing to reprehend – anywhere. And now, how is our future to be? It is for you to decide. I have not wronged you, and yet I am asking for forgiveness. Can you give me your love, and what I need as much, your pity? Can you forget your smaller affliction for the sake of my heavier one, for it is heavier?
“I plead guilty to one only treachery; and this I stooped to, to avoid the shame and disgrace of an open scandal. I told his mother that, though Lucy was my name, it was yours also; and that you were the Lucy of all his feverish wanderings. Your woman’s heart will pardon me this one perfidy.
“She is a very dangerous woman in one sense. She has a certain position in the world, from which she could and would open a fire of slander on any one. She desires to injure me. She has already threatened, and she is capable of more than threatening. She says she will see Sir William. This she may not be able to do; but she can write to him. You know better than I do what might ensue from two such tempers meeting; for myself I cannot think of it.
“I have written you a long letter, dear Lucy, when I only meant to have written five or six lines. I have not courage to read it over; were I to do so, I am sure I would never send it. Perhaps you will not thank me for my candor. Perhaps you will laugh at all my scrupulous honesty. Perhaps you will – no, that you never will – I mean, employ my trustfulness against myself.
“Who knows if I have not given to this incident an importance which you will only smile at? There are people so rich that they never are aware if they be robbed. Are you one of these, Lucy? and, if so, will you forgive the thief who signs herself your ever-loving sister,
“Lucy Skwell.
“I have told Dr. Beattie I would write to you; he looked as if he knew that I might, or that I ought, – which is it? Doctors see a great deal more than they ought to see. The great security against them is, that they acquire an indifference to the sight of suffering, which, in rendering them callous, destroys curiosity, and then all ills that can neither be bled nor blistered they treat as trifles, and end by ignoring altogether. Were it otherwise, – that is, had they any touch of humanity in their nature, – they would be charming confidants, for they know everything and can go everywhere. If Beattie should be one of your pets, I ask pardon for this impertinence; but don’t forget it altogether, as, one day or other, you will be certain to acknowledge its truth.
“We arrive by the 4.40 train on Saturday afternoon. If I see you at the door when we drive up, I shall take it as a sign I am forgiven.”
Beattie folded the letter slowly, and handed it to Lucy without a word. “Tell me,” said he, after they had walked on several seconds in silence, – “tell me, do you mean to-be at the door as she arrives?”
“I think not,” said she, in a very low voice.
“She has a humble estimate of doctors; but there is one touch of nature she must not deny them, – they are very sensitive about contagion. Now, Lucy, I wish with all my heart that you were not to be the intimate associate of this woman.”
“So do I, doctor; but how is it to be helped?”
He walked along silent and in deep thought.
“Shall I tell you, doctor, how it can be managed, but only by your help and assistance? I must leave this.”
“Leave the Priory! but for where?”
“I shall go and nurse Tom: he needs me, doctor, and I believe I need him; that is, I yearn after that old companionship which made all my life till I came here – Come now, don’t oppose this plan; it is only by your hearty aid it can ever be carried out. When you have told grandpapa that the thought is a good one, the battle will be more than half won. You see yourself I ought not to be here.”
“Certainly not here with Mrs. Sewell; but there comes the grave difficulty of how you are to be lodged and cared for in that wild country where your brother lives?”
“My dear doctor, I have never known pampering till I came here. Our life at home – and was it not happy! – was of the very simplest. To go back again to the same humble ways will be like a renewal of the happy past; and then Tom and I suit each other so well, – our very caprices are kindred. Do say you like this notion, and tell me you will forward it.”
“The very journey is an immense difficulty.”
“Not a bit, doctor; I have planned it all. From this to Marseilles is easy enough, – only forty hours; once there, I either go direct to Cagliari, or catch the Sardinian steamer at Genoa – ”
“You talk of these places as if they were all old acquaintances; but, my dear child, only fancy yourself alone in a foreign city. I don’t speak of the difficulties of a new language.”
“You might, though, my dear doctor. My French and Italian, which carry me on pleasantly enough with Racine and Ariosto, will expose me sadly with my ‘commissionnaire.’”
“But quite alone you cannot go, – that’s certain.”
“I must not take a maid, that’s as certain; Tom would only send us both back again. If you insist, and if grandpapa insists upon it, I will take old Nicholas. He thinks it a great hardship that he has not been carried away over seas to see the great world; and all his whims and tempers that tortured us as children will only amuse us now; his very tyranny will be good fun.”
“I declare frankly,” said the doctor, laughing, “I do not see how the difficulties of foreign travel are to be lessened by the presence of old Nicholas; but are you serious in all this?”
“Perfectly serious, and fully determined on it, if I be permitted.”
“When would you go?”
“At once! I mean as soon as possible. The Sewells are to be here on Saturday. I would leave on Friday evening by the mail-train from London. I would telegraph to Tom to say on what day he might expect me.”
“To-day is Tuesday; is it possible you could be ready?”
“I would start to-night, doctor, if you only obtain my leave.”
“It is all a matter of the merest chance how your grandfather will take it,” said Beattie, musing.
“But you approve? tell me you approve of it.”
“There is certainly much in the project that I like. I cannot bear to think of your living here with the Sewells; my experience of them is very brief, but it has taught me to know there could be no worse companionship for you; but as these are things that cannot be spoken of to the Chief, let us see by what arguments we should approach him. I will go at once. Haire is with him, and he is sure to see that what I suggest has come from you. If it should be the difficulty of the journey your grandfather objects to, Lucy, I will go as far as Marseilles with you myself, and see you safely embarked before I leave you.”
She took his hand and kissed it twice, but was not able to utter a word.
“There, now, my dear child, don’t agitate yourself; you need all your calm and all your courage. Loiter about here till I come to you, and it shall not be long.”
“What a true, kind friend you are!” said she, as her eyes grew dim with tears. “I am more anxious about this than I like to own, perhaps. Will you, if you bring me good tidings, make me a signal with your handkerchief?”
He promised this, and left her.
Lucy sat down under a large elm-tree, resolving to wait there patiently for his return; but her fevered anxiety was such that she could not rest in one place, and was forced to rise and walk rapidly up and down. She imagined to herself the interview, and fancied she heard her grandfather’s stern question, – whether she were not satisfied with her home? What could he do more for her comfort or happiness than he had done? Oh, if he were to accuse her of ingratitude, how should she bear it? Whatever irritability he might display towards others, to herself he had always been kind and thoughtful and courteous.
She really loved him, and liked his companionship, and she felt that if in leaving him she should consign him to solitude and loneliness, she could scarcely bring herself to go; but he was now to be surrounded with others, and if they were not altogether suited to him by taste or habit, they would, even for their own sakes, try to conform to his ways and likings.