All the faces in the street were in the windows; the little maidservant

flew to the wicket-gate; the Mesdames Clapp looked out from the

casement of the ornamented kitchen; Emmy, in a great flutter, was in

the passage among the hats and coats; and old Sedley in the parlour

inside, shaking all over. Jos descended from the post-chaise and down

the creaking swaying steps in awful state, supported by the new valet

from Southampton and the shuddering native, whose brown face was now

livid with cold and of the colour of a turkey's gizzard. He created an

immense sensation in the passage presently, where Mrs. and Miss Clapp,

coming perhaps to listen at the parlour door, found Loll Jewab shaking

upon the hall-bench under the coats, moaning in a strange piteous way,

and showing his yellow eyeballs and white teeth.

For, you see, we have adroitly shut the door upon the meeting between

Jos and the old father and the poor little gentle sister inside. The

old man was very much affected; so, of course, was his daughter; nor

was Jos without feeling. In that long absence of ten years, the most

selfish will think about home and early ties. Distance sanctifies both.

Long brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and

sweetness. Jos was unaffectedly glad to see and shake the hand of his

father, between whom and himself there had been a coolness--glad to see

his little sister, whom he remembered so pretty and smiling, and pained

at the alteration which time, grief, and misfortune had made in the

shattered old man. Emmy had come out to the door in her black clothes

and whispered to him of her mother's death, and not to speak of it to

their father. There was no need of this caution, for the elder Sedley

himself began immediately to speak of the event, and prattled about it,

and wept over it plenteously. It shocked the Indian not a little and

made him think of himself less than the poor fellow was accustomed to

do.

The result of the interview must have been very satisfactory, for when

Jos had reascended his post-chaise and had driven away to his hotel,

Emmy embraced her father tenderly, appealing to him with an air of

triumph, and asking the old man whether she did not always say that her

brother had a good heart?

Indeed, Joseph Sedley, affected by the humble position in which he

found his relations, and in the expansiveness and overflowing of heart

occasioned by the first meeting, declared that they should never suffer

want or discomfort any more, that he was at home for some time at any

rate, during which his house and everything he had should be theirs:

and that Amelia would look very pretty at the head of his table--until

she would accept one of her own.




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