, now
that it was over, understand myself; but he saw enough to make him aware
that the disturbance in me was serious, and not caused by any folly of my
own. He was very kind as soon as he had assured himself of this, and
talked, taking pains to bring me back to unexciting subjects. He had a
letter in his hand with a very deep border of black when I came in. I
observed it, without taking any notice or associating it with anything I
knew. He had many correspondents; and although we were excellent friends,
we had never been on those confidential terms which warrant one man in
asking another from whom a special letter has come. We were not so near
to each other as this, though we were father and son. After a while I
went back to my own room, and finished the evening in my usual way,
without any return of the excitement which, now that it was over, looked
to me like some extraordinary dream. What had it meant? Had it meant
anything? I said to myself that it must be purely physical, something
gone temporarily amiss, which had righted itself. It was physical; the
excitement did not affect my mind. I was independent of it all the time,
a spectator of my own agitation, a clear proof that, whatever it was, it
had affected my bodily organization alone.

Next day I returned to the problem which I had not been able to solve. I
found out my petitioner in the back street, and that she was happy in the
recovery of her possessions, which to my eyes indeed did not seem very
worthy either of lamentation or delight. Nor was her house the tidy house
which injured virtue should have when restored to its humble rights. She
was not injured virtue, it was clear. She made me a great many curtseys,
and poured forth a number of blessings. Her "man" came in while I was
there, and hoped in a gruff voice that God would reward me, and that the
old gentleman'd let 'em alone. I did not like the look of the man. It
seemed to me that in the dark lane behind the house of a winter's night
he would not be a pleasant person to find in one's way. Nor was this all:
when I went out into the little street which it appeared was all, or
almost all, my father's property, a number of groups formed in my way,
and at least half-a-dozen applicants sidled up. "I've more claims nor
Mary Jordan any day," said one; "I've lived on Squire Canning's property,
one place and another, this twenty year." "And what do you say to me?"
said another; "I've six children to her two, ble