As we walked down the street he spoke to me only once or twice, and then of things which startled me by their strangeness—things which had happened a long time ago; sayings and doings of mine in my childhood, which I had not the least idea he had either known of or remembered.
When we got in-doors I asked if I should come and sit with him till his bed-time.
"No—no; thee looks tired, and I have a business letter to write. Better go to thy bed as usual."
I bade him good-night, and was going, when he called me back.
"How old art thee, Phineas—twenty-four or five?"
"Twenty-five, father."
"Eh! so much?" He put his hand on my shoulder, and looked down on me kindly, even tenderly. "Thee art but weakly still, but thee must pick up, and live to be as old a man as thy father. Goodnight. God be with thee, my son!"
I left him. I was happy. Once I had never expected my old father and I would have got on together so well, or loved one another so dearly.
In the middle of the night Jael came into my room, and sat down on my bed's foot, looking at me. I had been dreaming strangely, about my own childish days, and about my father and mother when we were young.
What Jael told me—by slow degrees, and as tenderly as when she was my nurse years ago—seemed at first so unreal as to be like a part of the dream.