Mr. George was known by his lady friends as "a confirmed bachelor, but a most excellent man," the "but" implying that every well-to-do gentleman ought to marry, and "the excellent man" referring to the fact that ever since the children had been brought to him, fourteen years before, two helpless little babies, he had given them more than a father's care. He was nearly fifty years of age, a tall, "iron-gray" gentleman, with the courtliest of manners and the warmest of hearts; yet he was, as Liddy described him to her cousins, the Crumps, "an unexpected kind o' person, Mr. G. was. Just when you made up your mind he was very stiff and dignified, his face would light up into such a beautiful glow! And then, when you thought how nice, and hearty, and sociable he was, he would look so grave out of his eyes, and get so straight in the back that he seemed like a king in an ermine robe."
When Liddy had compared a man to "a king in an ermine robe," she had expressed her utmost pitch of admiration. She had heard this expression long ago in a camp-meeting discourse, and it seemed to her almost too grand a phrase for human use, unless one were speaking of Mr. George.
And a king Mr. George was, in some ways; a king who ruled himself, and whose subjects—Mr. George's traits of character—were loyal to their sovereign. Yet on one point he did deserve to be otherwise compared. All difficulties that were under his power to control he would bravely meet; but when anything troubled him which he could not remedy,—in fact, on occasions when he was perplexed, worried, or unable to decide promptly upon a course of action,—he often was a changed being. Quick as a flash the beautiful, genial glow would vanish, the kingly ermine would drop off, and he could be likened only to one of the little silver owls that we see upon dinner-tables, quite grand and proper in bearing, but very peppery within, and liable to scatter the pepper freely when suddenly upset.
Poor Dorry! It had been her sad experience to call forth this catastrophe very often of late, and in the most unexpected ways. Sometimes a mere gesture, even the tone of her voice, seemed to annoy her uncle. On one occasion, while he was pleasantly explaining some public matter to Donald and herself, she laid her hand gently upon the back of his, by way of expressing her interest in the conversation, and his excited "Why did you do that?" made the poor girl jump from him in terror.
Lydia, who was softly brushing the fireplace at that moment, saw it all, and saw, too, how quickly he recovered himself and spoke kindly to the child. But she muttered under her breath, as she went slowly down to the basement,—
"Poor Mr. G's gettin' worse of late, he is. I don't see as he ever will feel settled now. It's amazin' puzzlin', it is."
Yes, it was puzzling. And nobody better understood and pitied the kingly soul's perplexity than the good woman. Even Jack, the coachman, though he knew a good deal, had but a faint idea of what the poor gentleman suffered.
On the day when we saw Donald and Dorothy perched on the sofa, Mr. Reed had been remarkably changeful, and they had been puzzled and grieved by his manner toward Dorothy. He had been kind and irritable by turns, and finally, for some unaccountable reason, had sharply requested her to leave him, to "go away for mercy's sake," and then she had been recalled on some slight pretext, and treated with extra kindness, only to be wounded the next moment by a look from her uncle that, as she afterward declared, "made her feel as if she had struck him."
Donald, full of sympathy for Dorry, yet refusing to blame Uncle George without a fuller understanding of the matter, had followed his sister into the parlor, and there they had tried in vain to solve the mystery. For a mystery there evidently was. Dot was sure of it; and Donald, failing to banish this "foolish notion," as he called it, from Dot's mind, had ended by secretly sharing it, and reluctantly admitting to himself that Uncle George, kind, good Uncle George, really had not, of late, been very kind and good to Dorry.
"He hasn't been ugly," thought Donald to himself, while Dorothy sat there, eagerly watching her brother's countenance,—"Uncle couldn't be that. But he seems to love her one minute, and be half afraid of her the next—no, not exactly afraid of her, but afraid of his own thoughts. Something troubles him. I wonder what in the world it is! May be—"