'Do you forgive me, my dear?' she says. 'You never thought your mother would deceive you, I daresay.'
'I shall have to consider very seriously,' I say, kissing her, 'before I can pronounce an opinion on your conduct. There are some things that take a long time in learning.'
She stands between us, embracing us, glancing with tearful eyes from one to the other.
'But I must make haste, and get tea ready,' she cries, running away from us; 'there! the kettle's boiling over.'
'Which is the better kind of wisdom, uncle,' I say; 'that which comes from the head or the heart?'
He answers: 'That which touches us most deeply, which makes us kinder, more tender and tolerant, less harsh and dogmatic, more charitable and merciful, must be the better kind of teaching. All this springs from the heart. You said to your mother just now that some things take a long time in learning. I have been all my life learning a lesson, and have but now, when I am near my grave, mastered it. In plays, in poems, in stories, in songs, those words and sentiments which appeal to the heart are invariably most effective. You see, my dear boy, my views are changed.'
After this he asks me about myself, and I tell him what has passed, and he listens with pleasure and patience, as though he had not already heard it all from my mother's lips--but I do not think of this at the time.
'You have not mentioned Jessie's name,' he says, 'thinking perhaps it would pain me; but I can speak of her without grief, if not without sadness. I have only one wish in life now, my dear lad.'
Believing that he refers to a reconciliation between himself and Jessie, and having full faith in my mother's power to bring this about, I say that I earnestly hope it will be fulfilled, and that I believe it will be. He gazes at me with a soft light in his eyes.
'You know in what relation she stands to me, Chris?'