e responded in a dull and
uninterested fashion. I could not but feel that he resented bitterly
the marriage which had come between his sister and himself. He had had,
of course, a place to come to on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons, but I
had seen little of him then. My work was generally absorbing, and when I
had time to give to Irma, I wanted her all to myself. So I had fallen
into a habit, neither too kind nor yet too wise, of taking to my writing
or my proofs as often as Louis came to our house.

Now, from the glances he cast at the door by which Irma had gone out, I
saw that he too was suffering from jealousy--even as I had done. He was
jealous of that inarticulate Jacob which comes into so many houses as a
tiny Supplanter--the first baby!

After a quarter of an hour he rose and got out of the room quickly. I
could hear him go to his own room and shut the door. When Irma and Mary
Lyon had reduced our small bundle of earthquake to a sulky and plaintive
reason, she came back to talk to her brother. Finding him gone, she
asked where Louis was, and immediately followed him to his chamber,
doubtless to continue their conversation.

But she returned after a while with a curious gleam on her face, saying
that doubtless travel had given her brother a headache. He had shut his
door with the bolt, and was lying down.

I was on the point of asking Irma if he had answered when she called to
him, but remembered in time that I had better not meddle in what did not
concern me. If Louis behaved like a bear, it would only throw Irma the
more completely upon me. And this, at the time, I was selfish enough to
wish for.

Afterwards--well, I had, as all men have, many things to reproach myself
for--this stupid jealousy being by no means the least or the lightest.

Still, on the whole I had a great deal of peace and the composure of
the quiet mind during these first days at Heathknowes. My father, almost
for the first time in his life, withdrew himself from his desk, and took
a walk beyond the confines of the Academy Wood to see his grandson,
keeping, however, his hands still behind him according to his custom in
school. My mother, even, arranged with Agnes Anne to take the
post-office duties during her absence, and seemed pleased in her quiet
way to hold the boy in her arms. In this, however, she was not
encouraged by Mary Lyon, who soon took Duncan away on the plea that he
cried, except with her. Duncan the Second certainly stop