this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the steadfastness of her resolution), for any human consideration, disclose. My dear, I have told you all.”
I held his hand for a little while in mine.
“I saw my ward oftener than she saw me,” he added, cheerily making light of it, “and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy. She repays me twenty-thousand fold, and twenty more to that, every hour in every day!”
“And oftener still,” said I, “she blesses the guardian who is a Father to her!”
At the word Father, I saw his former trouble come into his face. He subdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but, it had been there, and it had come so swiftly upon my words that I felt as if they had given him a shock. I again inwardly repeated, wondering, “That I could readily understand. None that I could readily understand!” No, it was true. I did not understand it. Not for many and many a day.
“Take a fatherly good-night, my dear,” said he, kissing me on the forehead, “and so to rest. These are late hours for working and thinking. You do that for all of us, all day long, little housekeeper!”
I neither worked nor thought, any more, that night. I opened my grateful heart to Heaven in thankfulness for its providence to me and its care of me, and fell asleep.
We had a visitor next day. Mr. Allan Woodcourt came. He came to take leave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. He was going to China, and to India, as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be away a long, long time.
I believe—at least I know—that he was not rich. All his widowed mother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his profession. It was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with very little influence in London; and although he was, night and day, at the service of numbers of poor people, and did wonders of gentleness and skill, for them, he gained very little by it in money. He was seven years older than I. Not that I need mention it, for it hardly seems to belong to anything.
I think—I mean, he told us—that he had been in practice three or four years, and that if he could have hoped to contend through three or four more he would not have made the voyage on which he was bound. But he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going away. He had been to see us several times altogether. We thought it a pity he should go away. Because he was distinguished in his art among those who knew it best, and some of the greatest men belonging to it had a high opinion of him.
When he came to bid us goodbye, he brought his mother with him for the first time. She was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes, but she seemed proud. She came from Wales; and had had, a long time ago, an eminent person for an ancestor, of the name of Morgan ap-Kerrig—of some place that sounded like Gimlet—who was the most illustrious person that ever was known, and all of whose relations were a sort of Royal Family. He appeared to have passed his life in always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and a Bard whose name sounded like Crumlinwallinwer had sung his praises, in a piece which was called, as nearly as I could catch it, Mewlinnwillinwodd.
