"For God's sake, Rawdy, don't wake Mamma," he cried. And the child,

looking in a very hard and piteous way at his father, bit his lips,

clenched his hands, and didn't cry a bit. Rawdon told that story at

the clubs, at the mess, to everybody in town. "By Gad, sir," he

explained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one that boy

of mine is--what a trump he is! I half-sent his head through the

ceiling, by Gad, and he wouldn't cry for fear of disturbing his mother."

Sometimes--once or twice in a week--that lady visited the upper regions

in which the child lived. She came like a vivified figure out of the

Magasin des Modes--blandly smiling in the most beautiful new clothes

and little gloves and boots. Wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewels

glittered about her. She had always a new bonnet on, and flowers

bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling ostrich

feathers, soft and snowy as camellias. She nodded twice or thrice

patronizingly to the little boy, who looked up from his dinner or from

the pictures of soldiers he was painting. When she left the room, an

odour of rose, or some other magical fragrance, lingered about the

nursery. She was an unearthly being in his eyes, superior to his

father--to all the world: to be worshipped and admired at a distance.

To drive with that lady in the carriage was an awful rite: he sat up

in the back seat and did not dare to speak: he gazed with all his eyes

at the beautifully dressed Princess opposite to him. Gentlemen on

splendid prancing horses came up and smiled and talked with her. How

her eyes beamed upon all of them! Her hand used to quiver and wave

gracefully as they passed. When he went out with her he had his new

red dress on. His old brown holland was good enough when he stayed at

home. Sometimes, when she was away, and Dolly his maid was making his

bed, he came into his mother's room. It was as the abode of a fairy to

him--a mystic chamber of splendour and delights. There in the wardrobe

hung those wonderful robes--pink and blue and many-tinted. There was

the jewel-case, silver-clasped, and the wondrous bronze hand on the

dressing-table, glistening all over with a hundred rings. There was

the cheval-glass, that miracle of art, in which he could just see his

own wondering head and the reflection of Dolly (queerly distorted, and

as if up in the ceiling), plumping and patting the pillows of the bed.

Oh, thou poor lonely little benighted boy! Mother is the name for God

in the lips and hearts of little children; and here was one who was

worshipping a stone!

Now Rawdon Crawley, rascal as the Colonel was, had certain manly

tendencies of affection in his heart and could love a child and a woman

still. For Rawdon minor he had a great secret tenderness then, which

did not escape Rebecca, though she did not talk about it to her

husband. It did not annoy her: she was too good-natured. It only

increased her scorn for him. He felt somehow ashamed of this paternal

softness and hid it from his wife--only indulging in it when alone with

the boy.




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