There they were, dancing about me, as fine a pair of youngsters as you'd meet in a long day's journey.
'It's a most extraordinary thing; what does make these pockets of mine stick out? I wonder what it is inside.'
Then there was the business of turning those pockets of mine inside out, and discovering that there was something in every one of them. Amazing how such things could have got there. Ah, there's nothing like these family reunions. There wasn't a happier home than ours in the whole of that great city. Mary on my knee--how glad I was to have her there again--the children divided between their delight at their new possessions, and their joy at seeing father--it's only in such moments that we really live.
And such a tale as that wife of mine had to tell. Dear! dear! it's a strange world, and the most incredible things do happen.
It seemed that she had been anxious about me.
'Now, Mary, haven't I told you not to be anxious? Can't you understand that the very thought of your anxiety increases mine?'
Down came her pretty head.
'Sometimes I--I can't help it, James.'
This time she hadn't been able to help it to a very considerable extent. She'd actually thought that I was dead. That was, FitzHoward had been putting ideas into her head. And there was something about a man named Smith. But the tale got pretty considerably mixed; she never was much of a hand at telling a tale, my Mary. I couldn't make sense of it at all. My saying so, and laughing at her, didn't make it any plainer. Somebody--a Miss Something-or-other--had actually made her think that I was a nobleman. That idea did tickle me so, and I put it in such a way, that I started her laughing at it herself. And then when she'd once started she wouldn't stop; she's a keen sense of humour, Mary has. And she does look so pretty when she's laughing. It does me good to see her. Then the children joined. Oh, what a laugh we had at the idea of my being a British nobleman!
But the most surprising part of the story was that she'd actually been to some great house, and there fancied that she'd seen me. I couldn't follow all the ins and outs of the business as she told it, but what I did understand fairly took my breath away.