"You loved her, Aaron," he said simply.

"It was an undying love that made you adopt her orphan children." A charming thought came to him.

"When you brought us here," he said, with some elation, "Elspeth used to cry at nights because our mother's spirit did not come to us to comfort us, and I invented boyish explanations to appease her.

But I have learned since why we did not see that spirit; for though it hovered round this house, its first thought was not for us, but for him who succoured us." He could have made it much better had he been able to revise it, but surely it was touching, and Aaron need not have said "Damn," which was what he did say.
One knows how most men would have received so harsh an answer to such gentle words, and we can conceive how a very holy man, say a monk, would have bowed to it.

Even as the monk did Tommy submit, or say rather with the meekness of a nun.
"I wish I could help you in any way, Aaron," he said, with a sigh.
"You can," replied Aaron, promptly, "by taking yourself off to London, and leaving Elspeth here wi' me.