Henry looked up, after a while, timidly.—"You're not angry with me, father?" came from his innocent lips.
"Oh, no, my child! Why should I be angry?" replied Mr. Green, kissing the cheek of his boy. Then the sunshine came back again to Henry's heart, and he was happy as before.
Mrs. Green made the herb-tea for her husband, and it proved quite as good for him as the whiskey-punch. A glass or two of cold water, on going to bed, would probably have been of more real advantage in the case, than either of these doubtful remedies.
THE PORTRAIT.
"BLESS the happy art!" ejaculated Mrs. Morton, wiping the moisture from her eyes. "Could anything be more perfect than that likeness of his sweet, innocent face? Dear little Willie! I fear I love him too much."
"It is indeed perfect," said Mr. Morton, after viewing the picture in many lights. "My favourite painter has surpassed himself. What could be more like life, than that gentle, half-pensive face looking so quiet and thoughtful, and yet so full of childhood's most innocent, happy expression?"
Mr. Morton, here introduced to the reader, was a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia, and a liberal patron of the arts. He had, already, obtained several pictures from Sully, who was, with him, as an artist, a great favourite. The last order had just been sent home. It was a portrait of his youngest, and favourite child—a sweet little boy, upon whose head three summers had not yet smiled.
"I would not take the world for it!" said Mrs. Morton after looking at it long and steadily for the hundredth time. "Dear little fellow! A year from now, and how changed he will be. And every year he will be changing and changing; but this cannot alter, and even from the period of manhood, we may look back and see our Willie's face when but a child."
"Every one who is able," remarked Mr. Morton, "should have the portraits of his children taken. What better legacy could a father leave to his child, than the image of his own innocent face! Surely, it were enough to drive away thoughts of evil, and call up old and innocent affections, for any man, even the man of crime, to look for but a moment upon the image of what he was in childhood."