moment, it would be happiness for both hereafter to recall! Their hands clasped in each other—her head leaning on his young shoulder—her tears kissed so soothingly away. And soft words of kindly, motherly counsel—sweet promises of filial performance. Happy, thrice happy, as an after remembrance, be the final parting between hopeful son and fearful parent, at the foot of that mystic bridge which starts from the threshold of Home—lost in the dimness of the far-opposing shore!—bridge over which goes the boy who will never return but as the man.
CHAPTER XII.
Jasper Losely is beginning to be hard up! The infallible calculation at rouge-et-noir has carried off all that capital which had accumulated from the savings of the young gentlemen whom Dolly Poole had contributed to his exchequer. Poole himself is beset by duns, and pathetically observes "that he has lost three stone in weight, and that he believes the calves to his legs are gone to enlarge his liver."
Jasper is compelled to put down his cabriolet—to discharge his groom—to retire from his fashionable lodgings; and just when the prospect even of a dinner becomes dim, he bethinks himself of Arabella Crane, and remembers that she promised him £5, nay, £10, which are still due from her. He calls—he is received like the prodigal son. Nay, to his own surprise, he finds Mrs. Crane has made her house much more inviting—the drawing-rooms are cleaned up; the addition of a few easy articles of furniture gives them quite a comfortable air. She herself has improved in costume—though her favorite color still remains iron-gray. She informs Jasper that she fully expected him—that these preparations are in his honor—that she has engaged a very good cook—that she hopes he will dine with her when not better engaged; in short, let him feel himself at home in Poddon Place.
Jasper at first suspected a sinister design, under civilities that his conscience told him were unmerited—a design to entrap him into that matrimonial alliance which he had so ungallantly scouted and from which he still recoiled with an abhorrence which man is not justified in feeling for any connubial partner less preternaturally terrific than the Witch of Endor or the Bleeding Nun.
