great confusion he muttered, "I beg your pardon," and fled away,
dashing his handkerchief over his face. I asked Dora about it, but she
would tell nothing; I believe she was half ashamed, half jealous, but
it came round through Miss Woolmer, how throughout the address Harold
had sat with his eyes fixed on the preacher, and one tear after another
gathering in his eyes. And when the concluding hymn was sung--one
specially on the joys of Paradise--he leant his forehead against the
wall, and could hardly suppress his sobs. When all was over, he handed
his bag of sweets to one of the Sunday-school teachers, muttering "Give
them," and strode home.

From that time I believe there never was a day that he did not come to
my sitting-room to gaze at little Percy. He chose the time when I was
least likely to be there, and I knew it well enough to take care that
the coast should be left clear for him. I do believe that, ill-taught
and unheeding as the poor dear fellow had been, that service was the
first thing that had borne in upon him any sense that his children were
actually existing, and in joy and bliss; and that when he had once thus
hearkened to the idea, that load of anguish, which made him wince at
the least recollection of them, was taken off. It was not his nature
to speak in the freshness of emotion, and, after a time, there was a
seal upon his feelings; but there was an intermediate period when he
sometimes came for sympathy, but that was so new a thing to him that he
did not quite know how to seek it.

It was the next Sunday evening that I came into my room at a time I did
not expect him to be there, just as it was getting dark, that he seemed
to feel some explanation due. "This picture," he said, "it is so like
my poor little chap."

Then he asked me how old Percy had been when it was taken; and then I
found myself listening, as he leant against the mantelpiece, to a
minute description of poor little Ambrose, all the words he could say,
his baby plays, and his ways of welcoming and clinging to his father,
even to the very last, when he moaned if anyone tried to take him out
of Harold's arms. It seemed as though the dark shadow and the keen
sting had somehow been taken away by the assurance that the child might
be thought of full of enjoyment; and certainly, from that time, the
peculiar sadness of Harold's countenance diminished. It was always
grave, but the air of oppression went away.

I said something a