It will be just the same when I see you again: I shall never be able to speak, partly, I suppose, because I am a man, or on the road to becoming one.

I know this is making you cry; I can see the tears in your eyes across all the distance; but it is better even that you should cry than that you should think me cold or unmindful of your sorrow.

Do you know one of the sacred memories of my life?
It is that, on that blessed night when your mother asked me to come and live under her roof, she said she should be glad to feel that in any sudden emergency you and she would, have a near friend to lean upon.

There was a 'royal accolade,' if you like! I felt in an instant as if she had bestowed the order of knighthood upon me, and as if I must live more worthily in order to deserve her trust.

How true it is, Polly, that those who believe in us educate us! "Do you remember (don't cry, dear!) that night by the fireside,--the night when we brought her out of her bedroom after three days of illness,--when we sat on either side of her, each holding a hand while she told us the pretty romance of her meeting and loving your father?
I slipped the loose wedding ring up and down her finger, and stole a look at her now and then.