She showed good sense when she said that her place was
in the shop, and in her ancestral home over the shop.
No doubt there would be a certain awkwardness,
visible to others if not to themselves, about her living
in one part of London and her children in another.
But here also her good sense would come on;--and, besides,
this furnished house in town would be a mere brief
overture to the real thing--the noble country mansion
he was going to have, with gardens and horses and hounds
and artificial lakes and deer parks and everything.
Quite within the year he would be able to realize this
consummation of his dreams.
How these nice young people would revel in such a place--and
how they would worship him for having given it to them for
a home! His heart warmed within him as he thought of this.
He smiled affectionately at the picture Julia made,
polishing the glass with vehement circular movements
of her slight arm, and then grimacing in comic vexation
at the deadly absence of landscape outside. Was there
ever a sweeter or more lovable girl in this world? Would
there have to be some older woman to manage the house,
at the beginning? he wondered. He should like it immensely
if that could be avoided. Julia looked fragile and
inexperienced--but she would be twenty-one next month.
Surely that was a mature enough age for the slight
responsibility of presiding over servants who should be
the best that money could buy.
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