Then followed his long visit with its rhythmic lapse of happy days.
Then, the Holy Grail of her heart had been won.
And afterwards came the long waiting. The short visits to Dole. And now!
The marriage of Mabella and Lanty had taken place a month or so after Sidney left Dole the first time. Their little daughter Dorothy was more than a year old now.
Temperance and Nathan were not yet married, but three months before Temperance had bought a new black cashmere dress in Brixton, and Nathan was known to have priced a china tea set, with gilt rosebuds in the bottoms of the cups. Dole felt, therefore, that matters were approaching a crisis with Temperance and Nathan.
Old Mr. Lansing had grown very frail. He had had a stroke of paralysis, and had never been the same man again. His eyes always had an apprehensive look which was very painful to witness; and strangely enough this quiet, self-contained old man, who all his life had seemed so content with the little village where he was born, so scornfully unconscious of the world which fretted and throbbed beyond its quiet boundaries, now showed a great eagerness for word from the outside. He subscribed to several newspapers. And when Sidney came the old man would question him with persistent and pathetic eagerness about the details of different events which he had seen chronicled with big typed headings, and Sidney found himself often sore at heart because he knew nothing whatever about the matter. American journalism has some grave flaws in its excellence, and surely the hysterical lack of all sense of proportion and perspective in presenting the picture of the times is a deplorable thing. It does grave and positive harm in the rural districts where it is impossible for the people to gauge the statements by comparison with events.
Sidney was greatly touched by the misconception of old Mr. Lansing in regard to these things.
“Ah,” said the old man once, laying down the paper in which he had read a grotesquely exaggerated account of some political caucus which was made to appear like a meeting of the national powers, “Ah, there’s no wonder dear old Sid went to Bosting.” He shook his head and sat with his elbows upon his chair, looking before him into vacancy. What fanciful vista of possibilities did he look upon? What vague regrets beset his mind? To Sidney this was unspeakably pitiful. This old man with his young dreams—and it was the more sad, inasmuch as the dreamer himself knew their futility.
Old Lansing had always been a “forehanded” man with his work. He had never left over one season’s duties till another, but he had forgotten to dream in his youth, and now he was striving in his age to overtake the neglected harvests of his garden of fancy.