“I don’t know what is the matter with me,” she answered, suppressing her sobs. “I have not felt in good spirits of late. George, sometimes I think you are not well. You are a great deal changed in your manner to me. Have I—have I displeased you in any way?”
“You displeased me! No, my darling.”
He spoke with impulsive fondness. Well had it been for George Godolphin had no heavier care been upon him than any little displeasure his wife could give him. The thought occurred to him with strange bitterness.
“I’ll light you up, Maria,” he repeated. “I shall not be long after you.”
And, taking the heavy lamp from the table, he carried it to the outer passage, and held it while she went up the stairs. Then he returned to the room and to his work—whatever that work might be.
Vain work! vain, delusive, useless work! As you will soon find, Mr. George Godolphin.
Morning came. Whether gnawing care or hopeful joy may lie in the heart’s inner dwelling-place, people generally meet at their breakfast-tables as usual.
George Godolphin sat at breakfast with his wife. Maria was in high spirits: her indisposition of the previous evening had passed away. She was telling George an anecdote of Meta, as she poured out the coffee, some little ruse the young lady had exercised, to come over Margery; and Maria laughed heartily as she told it. George laughed in echo: as merrily as his wife. There must have been two George Godolphins surely at that moment! The outer, presented to the world, gay, smiling, and careless; the inner, kept for his own private and especial delectation, grim, dark, and ghastly.
Breakfast was nearly over, when there was heard a clattering of little feet, the door burst open, and Miss Meta appeared in a triumphant shout of laughter. She had eluded Margery’s vigilance, and eloped from the nursery. Margery speedily followed, scolding loudly, her hands stretched forth to seize the runaway. But Meta had bounded to her papa, and found a refuge.
George caught her up on his knee: his hair—the same shade once, but somewhat darker now—mixing with the light golden locks of the child, as he took from her kiss after kiss. To say that George Godolphin was passionately fond of his child would not be speaking too strongly: few fathers can love a child more ardently than George loved Meta. A pretty little lovable thing she was! Look at her on George’s knee! her dainty white frock, its sleeves tied up with blue, her pretty socks and shoes, her sunny face, surrounded by its shower of curls. Margery scolded in the doorway, but Miss Meta, little heeding, was casting her inquisitive eyes on the breakfast-table, to see what there might be especially nice upon it.