And though many of his nights were coming to be sleepless
throughout, and though the strain of it all was obvious enough as his
thin, drawn face bent over a breakfast for which he could find no relish,
yet the tradition that he was above all physical frailties and exempt
from all natural laws clamped its curious hold upon his family and even
upon himself. Eliza Marshall had almost come to regard him as she
regarded his business: each was a respectable and estimable abstraction
which held its own without too direct a heed from her; each an admirable
contrivance that had accomplished its purposes so long and with
so trustworthy a regularity that the thought of hitch, lapse, failure
never presented itself as a really tangible consideration. Each
day he grew a shade paler, a degree feebler, but the change came too
gradually for the unobservant and over-habituated eyes of his wife.
Rosy noticed it, however, when she came back to town, to begin seriously
her preparations for her wedding. "I don't think papa looks very well,"
she was contented to observe.
"Of course he doesn't," returned Jane, anxiously. "He ought to go off
somewhere for a change and rest. I've told him so a dozen times.
_You_"--to Rosy--"ought to know plenty of places. If I had my way about
it, he would start off to-morrow."
"Well, I don't know," observed her mother, slowly. "He never _has_ gone
off. And if you don't happen to feel first-rate, I don't know where you
can be better taken care of than right at home.
Pages:
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311