"Let the boy alone," says Baltimore angrily.
The child is looking from one parent to the other. He seems puzzled, expectant, but scarcely unhappy. Childhood can grasp a great deal, but not all. The more unhappy the childhood, the more it can understand of the sudden and larger ways of life. But children delicately brought up and clothed in love from their cradle find it hard to realize that an end to their happiness can ever come.
"Tell me, papa!" says he at last in a vague, sweet little way.
"What is there to tell?" replies his father with a most meagre laugh, "except that I saw Beecher bringing in some fresh oranges half an hour ago. Perhaps he hasn't eaten them all yet. If you were to ask him for one——"
"I'll find him," cries Bertie brightly, forgetting everything but the present moment. "Come, Trixy, come," to his dog, "you shall have some, too."
"You see there' won't be much trouble with him," says Baltimore, when the boy has run out of the room in pursuit of oranges. "It will take him a day, perhaps, and after that he will be quite your own. If you won't sign these papers to-day you will perhaps to-morrow. I had better go and tell Hansard that you would like to have a little time to look them over."
He walks quickly down the room, opens the door, and closes it after him.
CHAPTER LVII.
"This is that happy morn— That day, long-wished day Of all my life so dark (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn And fates my hopes betray) Which, purely white, deserves An everlasting diamond should it mark."