Heavy losses incident to the political changes of the year 1831 in France had kept him fastened at his post; and with the reviving trade under the peaceful régime of Louis Philippe, he had been more actively engaged even than before. Yet there was no interruption to his correspondence with Adèle, and no falling off in its expressions of earnest affection and devotion.
"I fancy you almost a woman grown now, dear Adèle. Those cheeks of yours have, I hope, not lost their roundness or their rosiness. But, however much you may have grown, I am sure that my heart would guide me so truly that I could single you out from a great crowd of the little Puritan people about you. I can fancy you in some simple New England dress,—in which I would rather see you, my child, than in the richest silks of those about me here,——gliding up the pathway that leads to the door of the old parsonage; I can fancy you dropping a word of greeting to the good Doctor within his study (he must be wearing spectacles now); and at evening I seem to see you kneeling in the long back dining-room, as the parson leads in family prayer. Well, well, don't forget to pray for your old father, my child. I shall be all the safer for it, in what the Doctor calls 'this wicked land.' And what of Reuben, whose mischief, you told me, threatened such fearful results? Sobered down, I suppose, long before this, wearing a stout jacket of homespun, driving home the 'keow' at night, and singing in the choir of a Sunday. Don't lose your heart, Adèle, with any of the youngsters about you. I claim the whole of it; and every day and every night mine beats for you, my child."
And Adèle writes back:—
"My heart is all yours, papa,—only why do you never come and take it? So many, many years that I have not seen you!
"Yes, I like Ashfield still; it is almost a home to me now, you know. New Papa is very kind, but just as grave and stiff as at the first. I know he loves me, but he never tells me so. I don't believe he ever told Reuben so. But when I sing some song that he loves to hear, I see a little quirk by his temple, and a glistening in his eye, as he thanks me, that tells it plain enough; and most of all when he prays, as he sometimes does after talking to me very gravely, with his arm tight clasped around me, oh, I am sure that he loves me!—and indeed, and indeed, I love him back again!
"It was funny what you said of Reuben; for you must know that he is living in the city now, and happens upon us here sometimes with a very grand air,—as fine, I dare say, as the people about Marseilles. But I don't think I like him any better; I don't know if I like him as well. Miss Eliza is, of course, very proud of him, as she always was."
As the nicer observing faculties of his child develop,—of which, ample traces appear in her letters,—Maverick begs her to detail to him as fully as she can all the little events of her every-day life. He has an eagerness, which only an absent parent can feel, to know how his pet is received by those about her; and would supply himself, so far as he may, with a full picture of the scenes amid which his child is growing up. Sheet after sheet of this simple, girlish narrative of hers Maverick delights himself with, as he sits upon his balcony, after business hours, looking down upon the harbor of Marseilles.
"After morning prayers, which are very early, you know, Esther places the smoking dishes on the table, and New Papa asks a blessing,—always. Then he says, 'I hope Adaly has not forgotten her text of yesterday.' And I repeat it to him. Such a quantity of texts as I can repeat now! Then Aunt Eliza says, 'I hope, too, that Adèle will make no mistake in her "Paradise Lost" to-day. Are you sure you've not forgotten that lesson in the parsing, child?' Indeed, papa, I can parse almost any page in the book.
"'I think,' says New Papa, appealing to Miss Eliza, 'that Larkin may grease the wheels of the chaise this morning, and, if it should be fair, I will make a visit or two at the north end of the town; and I think Adaly would like to go with me.'
"'Yes, dearly, New Papa,' I say,—which is very true.