"What a wretched night you must have had, uncle! You look poorly this morning. You should have sent for me before."
Again I summoned up all my powers of acting.
"I knocked over my medicine in the night. Perhaps that is why I look so wretched. I did not sleep after four. You can say so, if any of the boys ask after me at the breakfast table."
With a woman's solicitude she moved around to my side, where the screen stood.
"Why, what's this?" she exclaimed, stooping as her foot encountered some small object.
I expected her to lift the glass. Instead of that she lifted the bottle. It had been left there on the floor and not carried out of the room, as I had naturally supposed.
I endeavoured to look undisturbed and as if this bottle had been thrown over with the glass, but I failed pitiably. At the sight of her dear, womanly face and the affection beaming in every look, I broke down and raised my arms imploringly towards her.
"Come to my arms!" I prayed. "Let me feel one true head on my breast."
The next minute I was conscious of having said a word too much. Her look, which you all know and love, changed, and, while she submitted to my caresses and even warmly returned them, it was with an appearance of doubt which I almost cursed myself for having roused in that innocent breast.
"Why one true heart?" she repeated. "Are there not others in this house? George and Alfred love you devotedly; and little Claire—what child could show more fondness for a grandfather than she?"