ected herself and pressed it down again.

"It is too late now. He is so good--every body says so--and he is so
very good to me."

She spoke aloud, though she was alone in the room, or rather because
she was alone, after a habit which, like all solitarily reared and dreamy
persons, Christian had had all her life--her young, short life--only
twenty-one years--and yet it seemed to her a whole, long, weary
existence.

"If I can but make him happy! If what is left to me is only enough to
make him happy!"

These broken sentences were repeated more than once, and then she
stood silent as though in a dream still.

When she heard the door open, she turned round with that still, gentle,
passive smile which had welcomed Dr. Grey on every day of his brief
"courting" days. It never altered, though he entered in a character not
the pleasantest for a bridegroom, with his three little children, one on
either side of him, and the youngest in his arms.

But there are some men, and mostly those grave, shy, and reserved
men, who have always the truest and tenderest hearts, whom nothing
transforms so much as to be with children, especially if the children are
their own. They are given to hiding a great deal, but the father in them
can not be hid. Why should it? Every man who has anything really
manly in his nature knows well that to be a truly good father, carrying
out by sober reason and conscience those duties which in the mother
spring from instinct, is the utmost dignity to which his human nature
can attain.

Miss Oakley, like the rest of Avonsbridge, had long-known Dr. Grey's
history; how he had married early, or (ill-natured report said) been
married by, a widow lady, very handsome, and some years older than
himself. However, the sharpest insinuations ever made against their
domestic bliss were that she visited a good deal, while he was deeply
absorbed in his studies. And when, after a good many childless years,
she brought him a girl and boy, he became excessively fond of his
children. Whether this implied that he had been disappointed in his
wife, nobody could tell. He certainly did not publish his woes. Men
seldom do. At the birth of a third child Mrs. Grey died, and then the
widower's grief; though unobtrusive, was sufficiently obvious to make
Avonsbridge put all unkindly curiosity aside, and conclude that the
departed lady must have been the most exemplary and well-beloved of
wives and mothers.

All this,