So when his daughter had vanished through the door, with a smile and a kiss of the hand, he mounted his spectacles again, and spread the letter open on his knee.
After reading a while in silence, he spoke; though his voice was audible only to his own mental ears.
"There was a time," said he, "when I wouldn't have believed I could ever hear the news of that man's death, and take it so quietly! And now he sends me his son!--as it were bequeaths him to me.

Can it be as a hostage for forgiveness, though so late?
or is it merely because he knew I could not but feel a vital interest in the boy, and would instruct and treat him as my own?
He was a shrewd judge of human nature--and yet, I must not judge him harshly now." Here Professor Valeyon happened again to catch sight of his slipper, and interrupted his soliloquy to extend his stockinged toe, fork it toward himself, and having, with some trouble, got it right side uppermost, to put it on.

And then he referred once more to the letter.
"I should like to know whether he was aware that Abbie was here, or that she was alive at all! Margaret says nothing about it in her letter.

If he did, of course he must have written to her, or, if he was determined to die as for these last twenty years and more he has lived, he would never _knowingly_ have sent the boy where she was, on any consideration.
Well, well, I can easily find out how that is, from either Abbie or the boy.

By-the-way, I wonder whether this _incognito_ of his may have any thing to do with it?
Hum! Margaret says it's only so that he may not be interrupted in his studies by acquaintances.