A QUESTION.
The identically same doubt busied some minds in another quarter, where Mr. and Mrs. Dallas sat expecting their son home. They were not so much concerned with it through the winter; the Gainsboroughs had been happily got rid of, and were no longer in dangerous proximity; that was enough for the time. But as the spring came on and the summer drew nigh, the thought would recur to Pitt's father and mother, whether after all they were safe.
'He mentions them in every letter he writes,' Mrs. Dallas said. She and her husband were sitting as usual in their respective easy chairs on either side of the fire. Not for that they were infirm, for there was nothing of that; they were only comfortable. Mrs. Dallas was knitting some bright wools, just now mechanically, and with a knitted brow; her husband's brow showed no disturbance. It never did.
'That's habit,' he answered to his wife's remark.
'But habit with Pitt is a tenacious thing. What will he do when he comes home and finds they are gone?'
'Make himself happy without them, I expect.'
'It wouldn't be like Pitt.'
'You knew Pitt two and a half years ago. He was a boy then; he will be a man now.'
'Do you expect the man will be different from the boy?'
'Generally are. And Pitt has been going through a process.'