The boy raised his head, looked wonderingly over his father’s face, and said in a puzzled voice—
‘Louey said she would take me home in the puff puff.’
‘Come now with father, my boy. Only kiss this good lady first, who has been so kind to you.
‘Kiss Tommy too, and Fanny,’ said Michael, struggling down, and beginning a round of embraces that sufficiently proved that his nursery had been a happy one, while his father could see with joy that he was as healthy and fresh-looking as ever, perhaps a little less plump, but with the natural growth of the fourth year, and he was much the biggest of the party, with the healthfulness of country air and wholesome tendance, while most of the others were more or less stunted or undergrown.
Lord Northmoor’s longing was to take his recovered son at once to gladden his mother’s eyes;
but Michael’s little red frock would not exactly suit with the manner of his travels.
So he accepted the Guardian’s invitation to come to his house and let Michael be fitted out there, an invitation all the more warmly given because it would have been a pity to let wife and daughters miss the interest of the sight of the lost child and his father. So, all formalities being complied with and in true official spirit, the account for the boy’s maintenance having been asked for, a hearty and cordial leave was taken of the Matron, and Michael Kenton Morton was discharged from Liverpool Union.
The lady and her daughters were delighted to have him, and would have made much of him, but the poor little fellow proved that his confidence in womankind had been shaken, by clinging tight to his father, and showing his first inclination to cry when it was proposed to take him into another room to be dressed. Indeed, his father was as little willing to endure a moment’s separation as he could be, and looked on and assisted to see him made into a little gentleman again in outward costume.
After luncheon there was still time to reach Malvern by a reasonable hour of the evening, and Frank felt as if every moment of sorrow were almost a cruelty to his wife. The Guardian’s wife owned that she ought not to press him to sleep at her house, and forwarded his departure with strong fellow-feeling for the mother’s hungry bosom.
From the station Frank sent telegrams to Herbert, to Mrs. Morton, and to Rose Rollstone;