"Job has two mansions," said Felix. "He lives here chiefly; but he has another home, where his grandfather, Mr. Tudge, the stone-breaker, lives. My mother is very good to Job, Miss Lyon. She has made him a little bed in a cupboard, and she gives him sweetened porridge."
The exquisite goodness implied in these words of Felix impressed Esther the more, because in her hearing his talk had usually been pungent and denunciatory. Looking at Mrs. Holt, she saw that her eyes had lost their bleak north-easterly expression, and were shining with some mildness on little Job, who had turned round toward her, propping his head against Felix.
"Well, why shouldn't I be motherly to the child, Miss Lyon?" said Mrs. Holt, whose strong powers of argument required the file of an imagined contradiction, if there were no real one at hand. "I never was hard-hearted, and I never will be. It was Felix picked the child up and took to him, you may be sure, for there's nobody else master where he is; but I wasn't going to beat the orphan child and abuse him because of that, and him as straight as an arrow when he's stripped, and me so fond of children, and only had one of my own to live. I'd three babies, Miss Lyon, but the blessed Lord only spared Felix, and him the masterfulest and brownest of 'em all. But I did my duty by him, and I said, he'll have more schooling than his father, and he'll grow up a doctor, and marry a woman with money to furnish—as I was myself, spoons and everything—and I shall have the grandchildren to look up to me, and be drove out in the gig sometimes, like old Mrs. Lukyn. And you see what it's all come to, Miss Lyon: here's Felix made a common man of himself, and says he'll never be married—which is the most unreasonable thing, and him never easy but when he's got the child on his lap, or when——"
"Stop, stop, mother," Felix burst in; "pray don't use that limping argument again—that a man should marry because he's fond of children. That's a reason for not marrying. A bachelor's children are always young: they're immortal children—always lisping, waddling, helpless, and with a chance of turning out good."
"The Lord above may know what you mean! And haven't other folks's children a chance of turning out good?"
"Oh, they grow out of it very fast. Here's Job Tudge now," said Felix, turning the little one round on his knee, and holding his head by the back—"Job's limbs will get lanky; this little fist that looks like a puff-ball and can hide nothing bigger than a gooseberry, will get large and bony, and perhaps want to clutch more than its share; these wide blue eyes that tell me more truth than Job knows, will narrow and narrow and try to hide truth that Job would be better without knowing; this little negative nose will become long and self-asserting; and this little tongue—put out thy tongue, Job"—Job, awe-struck under this ceremony, put out a little red tongue very timidly—"this tongue, hardly bigger than a rose-leaf, will get large and thick, wag out of season, do mischief, brag and cant for gain or vanity, and cut as cruelly, for all its clumsiness, as if it were a sharp-edged blade. Big Job will perhaps be naughty—" As Felix, speaking with the loud emphatic distinctness habitual to him, brought out this terribly familiar word, Job's sense of mystification became too painful: he hung his lip and began to cry.
"See here," said Mrs. Holt, "you're frightening the innocent child with such talk—and it's enough to frighten them that think themselves the safest."
"Look here, Job, my man," said Felix, setting the boy down and turning him toward Esther; "go to Miss Lyon, ask her to smile at you, and that will dry up your tears like the sunshine."
Job put his two brown fists on Esther's lap, and she stooped to kiss him. Then holding his face between her hands she said, "Tell Mr. Holt we don't mean to be naughty, Job. He should believe in us more. But now I must really go home."
Esther rose and held out her hand to Mrs. Holt, who kept it while she said, a little to Esther's confusion—