Think of it for a few minutes while I look over these letters.

Perhaps I seem a grim and surly old man to you; but I am not naturally so.

You would never disappoint me." He turned away to his desk, and appeared to occupy himself with his letters, but he did not take in a single line of them.

He had set his heart once more on the hope of winning love and gratitude from some young wayfarer on life's rough road, whose path he could make smooth and bright.

He had been bitterly disappointed in his own son and his friend's son.