"To be sure. Dear papa, you are not looking well," she added, advancing to him.
"No? Looks don't matter much, Bessy, when folk get to be as old as I am. A thought comes over me at odd moments--that it is good to grow ugly, and yellow, and wrinkled. It makes us wish to become young and fair and pleasant to the sight again: and we can only do that through immortality. Through immortality, child."
Mr. North lifted his hand, the fingers of which had always now a trembling sort of movement in them, to his shrivelled face, as he repeated the concluding words, passing it twice over the weak, scanty brown hair that time and care had left him. Bessy kissed him fondly, and quitted the room with a sigh, one sad thought running through her mind.
"How sadly papa is breaking!"
Mrs. North swept down the broad gravel-walk leading from the entrance, until she came to a path on the left, which led to the covered portion of the grounds: where the trees in places grew so thick and close that shade might be had at midday. This part of the grounds was near the dark portion of the Dallory highway, already mentioned (where Jelly had surprised her mistress and Oliver Rane in the moonlight the past night), only the boundary hedges being between them. It was a sweet spot, affording retirement from the world and shelter from the fierce rays of the sun. Madam was fond of frequenting this spot: and all the more so because sundry loop-holes gave her the opportunity of peering out beyond. She could see all who passed to and from the Hall, without being herself seen. One high enclosed wall was especially liked by her; concealed within its shade, quietly resting on one of its rustic seats, she could hear as well as see. Before she had quite gained this walk, however, her son Sidney crossed her path. A young man of twenty now, undersized, insufferably vain, fast, and conceited. His face might be called a pretty face: his auburn curls were arranged after the models in a hairdresser's window; his very blue unmeaning eyes had no true look in them. Sidney North as like neither father nor mother: like no one but his own contemptible self; madam looked upon him as next door to an angel; he was her well-beloved. There can be no blindness equal to that of a doting mother.
"My dear, I thought you had gone with them to the station," she said.
"Didn't ask me to go; Dick and Arthur made room for themselves, not for me," responded Sidney, taking his pipe from his mouth to speak, and his voice was as consequential as his mother's.
A frown crossed madam's face. Dick and Arthur were rather in the habit of putting Sidney in the shade, and she hated them for it. Arthur was her own son, but she had never regarded him with any sort of affection.
"I'm going back this afternoon, mamma."
"This afternoon! No, my boy; I can't part with you to-day."