but me tom had never had me out of his thoughts she really believed all the time t had been away tom was the authority for everything tom was evidently the idol of her life never to be shaken on his by any commotion always to be believed in and done homage to with the whole faith of her heart come what might the deference which both she and showed towards the beauty pleased me very much i don t know that i thought it very reasonable but i thought it very delightful and essentially a part of their character if ever for an instant missed the that were still to be won i have no doubt it was when he handed the beauty her tea if his sweet tempered wife could have got up any self assertion against any one i am satisfied it could only have been because she was the beauty s sister a few slight indications of a rather and capricious manner which i observed in the beauty were considered by and his wife as her and natural if she had been born a queen bee and they laboring bees they could not have been more satisfied of that but their self forgetfulness charmed me their pride in these girls and their submission of themselves to all their was the little testimony to their own worth i could have desired to see if were addressed as a darling once in the course of that evening and to bring something here or carry something there of david or take something up or put something down or find something or fetch something he was so addressed by one or other of his sisters in law at least twelve times in an hour neither could they do anything without somebody s hair fell down and nobody but could put it up somebody forgot how a particular tune went and nobody but could hum that tune right somebody wanted to the name of a place in and only knew it something was wanted to be written home and alone could be trusted to write before breakfast in the morning somebody broke down in a piece of knitting and no one but was able to put the in the right direction they were entire of the place and and waited on them how many children could have taken care of in her time i can t imagine but she seemed to be famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed to a child in the english tongue and she sang to order with the little voice in the world one after another every sister issuing directions for a different tune and the beauty generally striking in last so that i was quite fascinated the best of all was that in the midst of their all the sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for and i am sure when i took my leave and was coming out to walk with me to the coffee house i thought i had never seen an obstinate head of hair or any other head of hair rolling about in such a shower of kisses altogether it was a scene i could not help dwelling on with pleasure for a long time after i got back and had wished good night if i had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers in that withered gray s inn they could not have brightened it half so much the idea of those girls among the dry law and the offices and of the tea and toast and children s songs in that grim atmosphere of and red dusty brief and paper law reports and bills of costs seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if i had dreamed that the s famous family had been admitted on the roll of and had brought the talking bird the singing tree and the golden water into gray s inn hall somehow i found that i had taken leave of for the night and come back to the coffee house with a great change in my despondency about him i began to think he would get on in spite of all the many orders of chief in england drawing a chair before one of the coffee room fires to think about him at my leisure i gradually fell from the consideration of his happiness to tracing prospects in the live coals and to thinking as they broke and changed of the principal and that had marked my life i had not seen a coal fire since i had left england three years ago though many a wood fire had i watched as it into ashes and mingled with the heap upon the hearth which not figured to me in my despondency my own dead hopes i could think of the past now gravely but not bitterly and could contemplate the future in a brave spirit home in its best sense was for me no more she in whom i might have inspired a dearer love i had taught to be my sister she would marry and would have new the history and experience on her tenderness and in doing it would never know the love for her that had grown up in my heart it was right that i should pay the of my headlong passion what i i had sown i was thinking and had i truly my heart to this and could i resolutely bear it and calmly hold the place in her home which she had calmly held in mine � when i found my eyes resting on a countenance that might have arisen out of the fire in its association with my early little mr the doctor to whose good offices i was indebted in the very first chapter of this history sat reading a newspaper in the shadow of an opposite corner he was tolerably stricken in years by 