“I fear,” said my father, set at rest by the sweetness of Yram’s voice and manner—he told me he had never seen any one to compare with her except my mother—“I fear, to do as much harm now as I did before, and with as little wish to do any harm at all.”
He then told her all that the reader knows, and explained how he had thought he could have gone about the country as a peasant, and seen how she herself had fared, without her, or any one, even suspecting that he was in the country.
“You say your wife is dead, and that she left you with a son—is he like George?”
“In mind and disposition, wonderfully; in appearance, no; he is dark and takes after his mother, and though he is handsome, he is not so good-looking as George.”
“No one,” said George’s mother, “ever was, or ever will be, and he is as good as he looks.”
“I should not have believed you if you had said he was not.”
“That is right. I am glad you are proud of him. He irradiates the lives of every one of us.”
“And the mere knowledge that he exists will irradiate the rest of mine.”
“Long may it do so. Let us now talk about this morning—did you mean to declare yourself?”
“I do not know what I meant; what I most cared about was the doing what I thought George would wish to see his father do.”