"His wife brought it--a dear good girl. She is in the house now, and will remain here as my daughter. You shall see her in good time, and hear the sad story from her own lips. I think the news would have killed me but for her."
"My Gerald and your Philip were good friends," murmured Mr. Weston. "Gerald will grieve, indeed, when he hears the news."
"Life is full of disappointment, full of changes. Man proposes, God disposes. I hope that I should die with my Philip by my bedside in this peaceful spot, and he dies at the other end of the world, sixteen thousand miles away, while I am still a hale old man. I have the comfort of knowing that his heart was beating with love for me--the dear lad!" He paused for a moment. "Notwithstanding this grief, I still have something to be grateful for, and I bow with submission to the Divine will. I have a new daughter, such a girl as I would have chosen for him, and mayhap a great blessing will be bestowed upon me in the course of a couple of months, and my Philip may live again in his son. And have I not still the dear old Silver Flagon? I look upon it almost as part of my own flesh and blood. My life is wedded to it by sweet and solemn memories. Why, I remember these old flagons when I could scarcely toddle! I used to look at my face in them when I was a boy; there was one with a long dent in it--here it is now on the sideboard--which seemed to split my face in two." He gazed wistfully into its polished surface. "It isn't the same face as it was then."
"What does the clock mark now?"
"Eight minutes to seven."
"How slowly the time passes! The moments are clogged with lead."
"It is only the years that fly," said Gideon Rowe. "We watch the minutes and the days, and the years slip by without our heeding them. But all at once we wake to the fact, and a sudden shock comes upon us. Truly 'we are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.'"
There was nothing singular in the perfect familiarity that existed between the speakers. Gideon Rowe came of an old family (though if he had come from a new family--a phrase I cannot quite understand--it would have been all the same) who had acquired their money honestly, and he had lived a blameless life. Such a man is the equal of a king. It was to be especially noted that the present conversation was carried on with a careful avoidance--by Mr. Weston most certainly--of a subject which must have been uppermost in their minds, and that directly one paused, the other took up the cue, as though they were desirous that not a moment should pass in silence. Another thing to be noted was, that frequently in the middle of a sentence, Mr. Weston--whether he or his companion was speaking--turned his head over his shoulder toward the door by which Michael Lee was stationed, with a timid, nervous, frightened look, as if expecting to see an apparition there. Still more conspicuous was his studied avoidance of the pictures that were hanging on the walls. If in an unwitting moment he happened to raise his eyes towards the portraits, he turned them away again with visible agitation. The attendants in the room preserved silence while their superiors were conversing. They stood in their places like statues.
"And we fret ourselves so unwisely," continued Mr. Rowe, with something of a wary look towards Mr. Weston. "We torture ourselves so unnecessarily. Instead of enjoying the opportunities which good fortune has placed in our hands, we bring unhappiness upon ourselves by setting our minds upon the accomplishment of certain wishes which we deem to be good, notwithstanding that they distinctly clash with the hopes of those who are dearest to us. We forget that life is short. Let me give you a bit of my philosophy, and apply it to ourselves. Here we stand, having grown from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age, marching from our very cradles into our graves. The changes that come naturally upon us we bear, if we are wise, with patience and resignation; with hope, also, that carries us in our lives to the contemplation of other spheres beyond the grave. There is a wonderful amount of goodness and sweetness in life, with all its sad changes. What best rewards us--what brings us the most pleasure and satisfaction--is to enjoy this good, in so far as it affects ourselves and others, and to make the very best use of it which lies in our power. You cannot deny that this is a sensible philosophy."
"It sounds so."