Three years passed, and John Hewlett’s name was spoken among English scholars as that of a great power, even though not yet at its height. In the fourth a deeper note was struck upon his heartstrings, a note above the joy of which was an instant reverberation of sadness, for the cry of his new-born child had apprehension for its echo,—a sudden and unaccountable fragility that had come upon Adela, against which science and love, though hand in hand, fought in vain.
“Her name is Rosalind,” he had said in the first happy days of reaction before, for him at least, the apprehension had taken shape, “for she came to us out of the forest of Arden.” Adela, raising herself by a great effort, put the child into his arms, and folding her in them against his breast, whispered, “Rosalind—that is the name I wished, so that I knew you would say it. Take her, and whatever happens, no matter what else she must lack, let it not be love.”
Two months later, in October, the fifth year of the marriage, and he sat alone with the little Rosalind again gathered in his arms, for Adela as a visible presence had gone.
Catharine, more moved than any one had supposed possible, offered to care for the baby when it became necessary for her father to return to college, while Miss Hewlett fairly begged for the child; but to both he turned a deaf ear. Under no circumstances should the child be separated from him, so Rosalind and a kindly middle-aged nurse, of father’s choosing, went back with Professor Hewlett to the university.
During her first five years it seemed that the little girl would be fairly killed with kindness; report of every tooth was carried from house to house, as if it had been the news of the endowment of a new chair. At five, Rosalind had the direct manners of her father enveloped in a bit of coy, feminine charm quite her own. While she was gracious to every one, she belonged only to him, who was also the measure by which she gauged the actions of the outward world. She slept in a crib beside him, breakfasted with him, dined when he lunched, and had a little table and chair in the corner of his study.
“It’s all very well for now,” people said, “but wait until she is a few years older, and she will need younger companionship.”
At ten, Rosalind began to pour her father’s coffee, perched in a high-backed chair with her toes hardly touching the footstool. She was a child at heart and full of the whims and tempers of childhood; she both loved and hated with a will, but as she took all her perplexities to her father to be sifted, he still managed to shield her from trouble, and in the next years that followed, the love of books, woods, flowers, and birds were woven into the fabric that bound the pair together. The little crib by his bedside had been replaced by a white, draped bed in the adjoining dressing-room, but she still knelt at his knees to say “Our Father,” and in her love blended the actual and spiritual father in her prayers.
“Wait until she is eighteen and the beaux begin to come,” said the croakers; “her father will then have to give up first place, and may not be able to shield her from disappointment.”
But at twenty the change had not yet come; all the younger men flocked to her, but her fraternal comradeship was so decided that one boundary-line served for all. One, Henry Benton, a man of thirty, a favourite of her father’s and likely to succeed him also, showed others what he felt, even though Rosalind did not see it, and one of those who saw was the Professor, and he stood appalled.