"Praise is sweet, especially
behind one's back. So pray go on, unless you have something better to
say to each other;" and Hope retired briskly into his office. But when
the lovers took him at his word, and began to strut up and down hand in
hand, and murmur love's music into each other's ears, he could not take
his eyes off them, and his thoughts were sad. She had only known that
young fellow a few months, yet she loved him passionately, and he would
take her away from her father before she even knew all that father had
done and suffered for her. When the revelation did come she would
perhaps be a wife and a mother, and then even that revelation would fall
comparatively flat.
Besides his exceptional grief, he felt the natural pang of a father at
the prospect of resigning her to a husband. Hard is the lot of parents;
and, above all, of a parent with one child whom he adores. Many other
creatures love their young tenderly, and their young leave them. But then
the infancy and youth of those creatures are so short.
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