“It is remarkably well written,” said Robert.
“You didn't hear it read at the hall?” said Andrew.
“No, I had not that good fortune.”
“You ought to have heard them clap,” said Andrew.
“Oh, father,” murmured Ellen, but she looked innocently at her father as if she delighted in his pride and pleasure without a personal consideration.
The front door opened. “That's your mother,” said Andrew.
Fanny looked into the lighted parlor, and dodged back with a little giggle.
Ellen colored painfully. “It is Mr. Lloyd, mother,” she said.
Then Fanny came forward and shook hands with Robert. Her face was flaming—she cast involuntary glances at Andrew for confirmation of her opinion. She was openly and shamelessly triumphant, and yet all at once Robert ceased to be repelled by it. Through his insight into the girl's character, he had seemed to gain suddenly a clearer vision for the depths of human love and pity which are beneath the coarse and the common. When Fanny stood beside her daughter and looked at her, then at Robert, with the reflection of the beautiful young face in her eyes of love, she became at once pathetic and sacred.
“It is all natural,” he said to himself as he was going home.