He was a pale, thin man, with an intellectual look, but had the air of a scholar and a recluse.
“I couldn’t do it, Guy,” he said. “Even if I walk a mile, I feel that it is a hardship. It is tame and monotonous. I don’t see where you get your red cheeks and exuberant spirits from.”
“From my mother’s family, I think, father.”
“Very likely. Your mother was bright and animated when I married her, but she broke down under the manifold duties and engagements of a minister’s wife.”
“That is true. Poor mother!”
Guy sighed, and his bright face looked sorrowful, for it was only a twelvemonth since his mother was laid away in the little graveyard at Bayport.
“You look very much like your uncle George, your mother’s brother, as he was at your age.”
“He became a sailor?”
“Yes. He had an extraordinary love for the sea. If he had been content to live on land and follow some mercantile business, he would, in all probability, be living to-day.”
“How did he die?”