“Perhaps you are right, my love—you generally are right in the main; but my desire for vengeance upon that man De Talor has been the breath of my nostrils, and behold! I have achieved it. Man, if he only lives long enough, and has strength of will enough can achieve anything. But man fritters away his powers over a variety of objects; he is led astray in pursuit of the butterfly Pleasure, or the bubble Ambition, or the Destroying Angel Woman; and his purposes fall to the ground between a dozen stools. Most men, too, are not capable of a purpose. Men are weak creatures; and yet what a mighty seed lies hid in every human breast! Think, my children, what man might, nay, may become, when his weakness and follies have fallen from him, when his rudimentary virtues have been developed, and his capacities for physical and mental beauties brought to an undreamed of perfection! Look at the wild flower and the flower of the hot-house—it is nothing compared to the possibilities inherent in man, even as we know him. It is a splendid dream! Will it ever be fulfilled, I wonder? Well, well—
‘Whatever there is to know
That we shall know one day.’
Come, let us turn; it will soon be time to dress for dinner. By the way, Dorothy, that reminds me. I don’t quite like the way that your respected grandfather is going on. I told him that I had no more deeds for him to copy, that I had done with deeds, and he went and got that confounded stick of his, and showed me that according to his own little calculations his time was up; and then he got his slate and wrote about my being the devil on it, but that I had no more power over him, and that he was bound for heaven. The other day, too, I caught him staring at me through the glass of the door with a very queer look in his eyes.”
“Ah, Reginald, so you have noticed it! I quite agree with you; I don’t at all like his goings-on. Do you know, I think that he had better be shut up.”
“I don’t like to shut him up, Dorothy. However, here we are; we will talk about it to-morrow.”
Having led Ernest to his room, Dorothy, before beginning to dress herself, went to the office to see if her grandfather was still there. And there, sure enough, she found him, pacing up and down, muttering, and waving his long stick, out of which all the notches had now been cut.
“What are you doing, grandfather?” she asked; “why haven’t you gone to dress?”
He snatched up his slate and wrote rapidly upon it:
“Time’s up! Time’s up! Time’s up! I’ve done with the devil and all his works. I’m off to heaven on the big black horse to find Mary. Who are you? You look like Mary.”
“Grandfather,” said Dolly, quietly taking the slate out of his hand, “what do you mean by writing such nonsense? Let me hear no more of it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Now, mind, I will have no more of it. Put away that stick, and go and wash your hands for dinner.”