CHAPTER XXI
"IF I WERE ONLY LIKE YOU!"
Who, seeking for himself alone, ever entered heaven?
In blessing we are blest.
—C. SEYMOUR.
There is no separation—no Past; Eternity, the Now is continuous.... The continuity of Now is for ever.
—RICHARD JEFFERIES.
The party from the Crow's Nest were somewhat late in arriving the following evening. Verity made her excuses very prettily.
"It was all darling Babs's fault," she said to Miss Templeton; "she would play instead of going to sleep. Mr. Herrick lost patience at last, and declared he would go on alone."
"I must take my god-daughter in hand, or she will be ruined body and soul," observed Malcolm severely. "Babs is already a domestic tyrant, and screams the house down if any of her fads and fancies are resisted. I am thinking of writing a series of essays on degenerate and irresponsible parents, and the cruelty of modern education in the nursery, which out-Herods Herod." Of course they all laughed at this idea, and then David Carlyon crossed the room to shake hands with Malcolm and to introduce his father.
The two men were curiously alike. The Rev. Rupert Carlyon was an older, shabbier, and more careworn David; but there was the same broad, intellectual brow, the same bright intelligence of expression, and their voices were so strangely similar that if Malcolm had closed his eyes he could not have distinguished between them; they both spoke with the same quickness, and in the same clipping fashion.
Malcolm noticed before the evening was over that David Carlyon looked unusually pale and tired, though he seemed in excellent spirits. Dinah made the same remark to his father.