The greatest pang that Sophy felt at this time (and she had not a few) was the fact that Bobby was to be left at Sweet-Waters during these months of absence. They had never been a day, much less a night, apart since he was born. Now she would leave him, in Charlotte's care, whom he dearly loved, it is true, but—she would leave him.
Charlotte could not throw off the depression caused by this fulfilment of her anxious prognostications.
"She may be happy now," she told her Joe; "but oh! what will she feel—say in two years—when she wakes up?"
The Judge admitted the possibility of Sophy's present joy suffering a diminution. He even went so far as to say that very possibly there might be some disillusionment for her in the soberer future—but he roundly approved her present joy.
"Doggone it, Charlotte!" he exclaimed, using the one form of oath that he permitted himself. "The poor girl's seen enough misery. Why shouldn't she be happy in her own way! This Loring is a nice fellow. He's rich ... that's not to be sneezed at, let me tell you, old lady. He's good-tempered: he's a gentleman—he's heels over head in love with her...."
"And he's four ... nearly five years younger," put in Charlotte sternly.
The Judge rubbed his dusky wreath of hair the wrong way about his fine, bald poll—a sure sign that he was "up against" a knotty question.
"That's a pity, I admit," he said rather lamely. Like Charlotte, he had very old-fashioned notions about the desirability—almost the necessity—of a husband's being the elder of his wife. It shocked his fixed ideals, when brought face to face with it in this plump manner, that Sophy should be her lover's senior by four years.
Charlotte's fly-away eyebrows came down and joined.
"It's a tragedy and it's a shame!" said she.