Well, if Robert Lyon had any misgivings—and being a man, and in love, perhaps he had—they were ended now.
"Is she glad to see me?" was all he could find to say when, Johanna having considerately vanished, he might have talked as much as he pleased.
Hilary's only answer was a little, low laugh of inexpressible content.
He lifted up between his bands the sweet face, neither so young nor so pretty as it had been, but oh! so sweet, with the sweetness that long outlives beauty—a face that a man might look on all his life time and never tire of—so infinitely loving, so infinitely true! And he knew it was his wife's face, to shine upon him day by day, and year by year, till it faded into old age—beautiful and beloved even then. All the strong nature of the man gave way; he wept almost like a child in his "little woman's" arms.
Let us leave them there, by that peaceful fireside—these two, who are to sit by one fire-side as long as they live. Of their further fortune we know nothing—nor do they themselves—except the one fact, in itself joy enough for any mortal cup to hold, that it will be shared together. Two at the hearth, two abroad; two to labor, two to rejoice; or, if so it must be, two to weep, and two to comfort one another; the man to be the head of the woman, and the woman the heart of the man. This is the ordination of God; this is the perfect life; none the less perfect that so many fall short of it.
So let us bid them good-by: Robert Lyon and Hilary Leaf, "Good-by;
God be with ye!" for we shall see them no more.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Elizabeth stood at the nursery window, pointing out to little Henry how the lilacs and laburnums were coming into flower in the square below, and speculating with him whether the tribe of sparrows which they had fed all the winter from the mignonette boxes on the window sill would be building nests in the tall trees of Russell Square; for she wished, with her great aversion to London, to make her nursling as far as possible "a country child."
Master Henry Leaf Ascott was by no means little now. He would run about on his tottering fat legs, and he could say, "Mammy Lizzie," also, "Pa-pa," as had been carefully taught him by his conscientious nurse. At which papa had been at first excessively surprised, then gratified, and had at last taken kindly to the appellation as a matter of course.
It inaugurated a new era in Peter Ascott's life. At first twice a week, and then every day, he sent up for "Master Ascott" to keep him company at dessert; he then changed his dinner hour from half past six to five, because Elizabeth, with her stern sacrifice of every thing to the child's good, had suggested to him, humbly but firmly, that late hours kept little Henry too long out of his bed. He gave up his bottle of port and his after-dinner sleep, and took to making water-lilies and caterpillars out of oranges and boats out of walnut shells, for his boy's special edification. Sometimes when, at half past six, Elizabeth, punctual as clock-work, knocked at the dining room door, she heard father and son laughing together in a most jovial manner, though the decanters were in their places and the wine glasses untouched.