"Yes," I said, "we will begin lessons to-morrow, and go on to the Latin
Grammar very shortly."
At which Cynthia folded the child in her arms, to defend it, and
reassured it in a sentence which is far too silly to set down here.
I think that sometimes on earth the arrival of a first child is a very
trying time for a wedded pair. The husband is apt to find his wife's
love almost withdrawn from him, and to see her nourishing all kinds of
jealousies and vague ambitions for her child. Paternity is apt to be a
very bewildered and often rather dramatic emotion. But it was not so
with us. The child seemed the very thing we had been needing without
knowing it. It was a constant source of interest and delight; and in
spite of Cynthia's attempts to keep it ignorant and even fatuous, it did
develop a very charming intelligence, or rather, as I soon saw, began to
perceive what it already knew. It soon overwhelmed us with questions,
and used to patter about the garden with me, airing all sorts of
delicious and absurd fancies. But, for all that, it did seem to make an
end of the first utter closeness of our love.
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