Thus
vanished the air-drawn Doubting Castle and Giant Despair which I had
so hastily conjured up! The cause assigned by Mr Arbuthnot for the
agitation I had witnessed, was doubtless the true one; and yet, and
the thought haunted me for months, years afterwards, he opened only
_one_ letter that morning, and had sent a message to his wife that the
child was well!
Mrs Danby remained at the Park till the little Robert was weaned, and
was then dismissed very munificently rewarded. Year after year rolled
away without bringing Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot any additional little ones,
and no one, therefore, could feel surprised at the enthusiastic love
of the delighted mother for her handsome, nobly-promising boy. But
that which did astonish me, though no one else, for it seemed that I
alone noticed it, was a strange defect of character which began to
develop itself in Mr Arbuthnot. He was positively jealous of his
wife's affection for their own child! Many and many a time have I
remarked, when he thought himself unobserved, an expression of intense
pain flash from his fine, expressive eyes, at any more than usually
fervent manifestation of the young mother's gushing love for her first
and only born! It was altogether a mystery to me, and I as much as
possible forbore to dwell upon the subject.
Nine years passed away without bringing any material change to the
parties involved in this narrative, except those which time brings
ordinarily in his train.
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