Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/170

Leaves from an English Solicitor's Note Book. sion to summon his only son, George, from privately, whether she had any reason for London. This son, George, had at one time supposing that her brother had married, I been a pupil in my office, though only for a found that I had touched a secret grief, for short time, as he had made up his mind to go she burst into a flood of tears, and told me up to London and keep his terms at the that she feared that if he had married at all, Temple and read for the bar. George was he had married unwisely and unworthily, for a fine fellow, a gentleman in every sense of he had said nothing to his father or to her the word; he had been a great favorite at his self about it, but that an ugly rumor had college, a good athlete, and a first-rate cross reached the rectory, as to which, out of pity country rider. His only fault that I had for her father, she had not spoken to him ever discovered was a disinclination to work, since his attack of illness on the Sunday which had caused some little trouble between when I had visited them. She implored me him and his father; but latterly, he had be very earnestly to set my other business aside come more industrious, so I learned, and I and travel to London with her father, so as was in hopes that he would be called soon to be with him in case of another attack of and enter on his career, in which I had every illness. I had not the heart to refuse her reason to hope he would succeed. urgent entreaty, and a few hours later the It was only a few days after this that I archdeacon and I were speeding up to Lon received a letter from my London agent an don as fast as the afternoon express could nouncing that George was lying dangerous lake vis. My position was, as my reader will ly ill at his lodgings in Bernard Street, Lon see, a very delicate one. Was I bound to don, and that it was urgent that his father tell the archdeacon of the postscript to my should go up at once if he wished to see him agent's letter? Suppose I said nothing about alive; and the letter ended with a postscript it, how could the presence of the mysterious which added greatly to my anxiety, "Did nurse be accounted for? I was still young you know that he is married? A young ladv in the practice of my profession, but I had who calls herself his wife is nursing him with already begun to study the art of diplomacy, great care and attention, but we had never so needful to all lawyers, as, for example, heard of his being married. Married! No, how to cautiously approach a delicate sub I certainly was not aware of it, and I felt ject in apparently careless conversation, with sure his father knew nothing about it, or he a view to discover how much the other party would have told me. There was only one really knows. As soon as we were alone in thing for me to do, to go out to Compton at the railway carriage, I managed to say a few once, and break the news of his illness as apparently careless words as to my fear that gently as I could to his father. I took his this illness would stop George's being called doctor out to Compton with me, as I feared to the bar for some little time, saying I had the shock of the bad news would bring on every reason for hoping he had a good another attack of illness, but I kept the ques career before him, and that if only he could tion of the marriage to myself. We got over find a good, sensible wife of the right sort, our task belter than I had expected. I can who would help him and not hinder him in not put down all that passed, but I never his work, I hoped he would settle down and realized before how far a good man of holy have a bright and happy home of his own. life is removed above the sphere of the I watched the archdeacon's face closely as I trouble and worry of the smaller cares and spoke these careless platitudes, and I saw he anxieties of daily life, and lives in a region was struggling with some thought; then, evi not so far off the other life in which his dently nerving himself to his task with a hopes and thoughts are centred. But when strong effort, he asked me whether, in the I took Miss Harrison aside, and asked her, course of mv life, T had ever received an