Better, when he did come in, that he should find a cheerful hearth and--me.
Me, his friend and brother, who had loved him these six years better than anything else in the whole world.

Yet what could I do now?
Fate had taken the sceptre out of my hands--I was utterly powerless; I could neither give him comfort nor save him pain any more.
What I felt then, in those long, still hours, many a one has felt likewise; many a parent over a child, many a sister over a brother, many a friend over a friend.

A feeling natural and universal.

Let those who suffer take it patiently, as the common lot; let those who win hold the former ties in tenderest reverence, nor dare to flaunt the new bond cruelly in the face of the old.
Having said this, which, being the truth, it struck me as right to say, I will no more allude to the subject.
In the afternoon there occurred an incident.

A coach-and-four, resplendent in liveries, stopped at the door; I knew it well, and so did all Norton Bury.