“'Me, papa?'
“'You and—and Mr. Warrington—and—and George, my love,' says papa. Upon which” (says Mr. Jack). “my sister came closer to the General, and laid her head upon him, and wept upon his shoulder.
“'This is different, sir,' says I, 'to a passage I remember in Pausanias.'
“'In Pausanias? Indeed!' said the General. 'And pray who was he?'
“I smiled at my father's simplicity in exposing his ignorance before his children. 'When Ulysses was taking away Penelope from her father, the king hastened after his daughter and bridegroom, and besought his darling to return. Whereupon, it is related, Ulysses offered her her choice,—whether she would return, or go on with him? Upon which the daughter of Icarius covered her face with her veil. For want of a veil my sister has taken refuge in your waistcoat, sir,' I said, and we all laughed; though my mother vowed that if such a proposal had been made to her, or Penelope had been a girl of spirit, she would have gone home with her father that instant.
“'But I am not a girl of any spirit, dear mother!' says Theodosia, still in gremio patris. I do not remember that this habit of caressing was frequent in my own youth,” continues Jack. “But after some more discourse, Brother Warrington! bethought me of you, and left my parents insisting upon Theodosia returning to bed. The late transactions have, it appears, weakened and agitated her much. I myself have experienced, in my own case, how full of solliciti timoris is a certain passion; how it racks the spirits; and I make no doubt, if carried far enough, or indulged to the extent to which women who have little philosophy will permit it to go—I make no doubt, I say, is ultimately injurious to the health. My service to you, brother!”
From grief to hope, how rapid the change was! What a flood of happiness poured into my soul, and glowed in my whole being! Landlord, more port! Would honest Jack have drunk a binful I would have treated him; and, to say truth, Jack's sympathy was large in this case, and it had been generous all day. I decline to score the bottles of port: and place to the fabulous computations of interested waiters, the amount scored against me in the reckoning. Jack was my dearest, best of brothers. My friendship for him I swore should be eternal. If I could do him any service, were it a bishopric, by George! he should have it. He says I was interrupted by the watchman rhapsodising verses beneath the loved one's window. I know not. I know I awoke joyfully and rapturously, in spite of a racking headache the next morning.
Nor did I know the extent of my happiness quite, or the entire conversion of my dear noble enemy of the previous morning. It must have been galling to the pride of an elder man to have to yield to representations and objections couched in language so little dutiful as that I had used towards Mr. Lambert. But the true Christian gentleman, retiring from his talk with me, mortified and wounded by my asperity of remonstrance, as well as by the pain which he saw his beloved daughter suffer, went thoughtfully and sadly to his business, as he subsequently told me, and in the afternoon (as his custom not unfrequently was) into a church which was open for prayers. And it was here, on his knees, submitting his case in the quarter whither he frequently, though privately, came for guidance and comfort, that it seemed to him that his child was right in her persistent fidelity to me, and himself wrong in demanding her utter submission. Hence Jack's cause was won almost before he began to plead it; and the brave, gentle heart, which could bear no rancour, which bled at inflicting pain on those it loved, which even shrank from asserting authority or demanding submission, was only too glad to return to its natural pulses of love and affection.