yet at the time we seemed to have accomplished nothing. Before a day or
two he had wiped off the ill results of his discomfiture, and, to all
appearance, stood as high as ever. As for my Lord Durrisdeer, he was sunk in
parental partiality; it was not so much love, which should be an active quality,
as an apathy and torpor of his other powers; and forgiveness (so to misapply a
noble word) flowed from him in sheer weakness, like the tears of senility. Mrs.
Henry's was a different case; and Heaven alone knows what he found to say to
her, or how he persuaded her from her contempt. It is one of the worst things of
sentiment, that the voice grows to be more important than the words, and the
speaker than that which is spoken. But some excuse the Master must have found,
or perhaps he had even struck upon some art to wrest this exposure to his own
advantage; for after a time of coldness, it seemed as if things went worse than
ever between him and Mrs. Henry. They were then constantly together. I would not
be thought to cast one shadow of blame, beyond what is due to a half-wilful
blindness, on that unfortunate lady; but I do think, in these last days, she was
playing very near the fire; and whether I be wrong or not in that, one thing is
sure and quite sufficient: Mr. Henry thought so. The poor gentleman sat for days
in my room, so great a picture of distress that I could never venture to address
him; yet it is to be thought he found some comfort even in my presence and the
knowledge of my sympathy. There were times, too, when we talked, and a strange
manner of talk it was; there was never a person named, nor an individual
circumstance referred to; yet we had the same matter in our minds, and we were
each aware of it. It is a strange art that can thus be practised; to talk for
hours of a thing, and never name nor yet so much as hint at it. And I remember I
wondered if it was by some such natural skill that the Master made love to Mrs.
Henry all day long (as he manifestly did), yet never startled her into reserve.
    To show how far affairs had gone with Mr. Henry, I will give some words of
his, uttered (as I have cause not to forget) upon the 26th of February 1757. It
was unseasonable weather, a cast back into