We were all deeply moved. After a little, Mr. Gaylord asked: “Is there anything more?”
Frederick began making circles, and his mother said: “He’s so happy!”
“Happy isn’t the word for it! I’m personified radiance and bliss! There isn’t anything more to-night, except my love to all of you, always—and to-morrow, and the next day, and all the days to come, we are reunited and indivisible. That’s enough, isn’t it, sir? Good night. Frederick.”
VIII
The next day, that grandfather for whom Mr. Wylie had asked came briefly, discussing purpose, like the rest.
“I didn’t half understand my own impulses there,” he said, “but I know now that the best thing a man can do for other men—and for himself, too—is to give them a chance to develop whatever is in them. Sometimes it isn’t much, from the point of view of the intelligent man, but the fact remains that it is force, and the more quickly it is developed the more quickly the sum of the whole will be raised.”
He closed more personal assurances by saying: “There may be no way to put it into words, but you may be sure I am watching, and helping, and being helped, too, by your reaching toward our common purpose.”
When Frederick had taken over the pencil again, Mrs. Gaylord spoke of the long message to his father the night before, to which he replied: “It was only a beginning. This thing we have to tell you can’t be given, nor yet accepted, in a day or a month. That letter last night was a sort of foreword, just to get us all started even. The proof of the pudding is coming later.”