My parents were very proud of their little daughter, who grew into a lovely child, but she did not seem to afford them as much pleasure as pride. Sometimes I detected my mother looking at her as we romped together, with more pain in the expression of her face than anything else. Once she caught her suddenly to her bosom, and kissed her golden curls with passion, exclaiming,—
‘Oh, my heart, if I were to go, what would become of you?—what would become of you?’
I was still too young to grasp the full meaning of her words, but I knew my mother meant that if she died, no one would take such good care of Violet as she had done. So I marched up to her confidently, with the assurance that I would take that responsibility upon my own shoulders.
‘Don’t be afraid, mamma! As soon as I am a man, I mean to get a house all to myself, and the best rooms in it shall be for Violet.’
She looked at me with her sweet, earnest, searching gaze for a moment, and then folded me in one embrace with her own child.
‘Father’s boy!’ she murmured, caressingly over me—‘father’s brave, loving boy! No, Charlie, I will not be afraid! If it be God’s will that I should go, I will trust Violet to father and to you.’
Meanwhile my father was a very contented man. He had undergone much the same change as myself, and forgotten, in the sunshine that now surrounded him, all the miserable years he had spent in that once desolate mansion.
I do not suppose a happier nor more peaceful family existed than we were. No jars nor bickering ever disturbed the quiet of the household; everything seemed to go as smoothly as though it had been oiled. We were like the crew of some ship, safely moored within a sunny harbour, never giving a thought to what tempests might be raging outside the bar.
Every Saturday when I rode home on my pony, I found my father either working out of doors if it were summer, or indoors if it were winter, but always with the same satisfied easy smile upon his countenance, as though he had no trouble in the world, as indeed he had not; for my mother warded off the most trifling annoyance from him as though he were a sick child, that must not be upset; whilst she threaded her quiet way through the kitchen and bedrooms, with little Violet clinging to her gown, regulating the household machinery by her own supervision, that no accident might occur to ruffle her husband’s temper.