ould neither respond nor understand, what a strange
thing it was! No doubt this instinct had been implanted in order to
preserve the germ and keep the race going; but that it should thus
develop into an absorbing passion and overshadow everything else in life
was a proof how the natural gets exaggerated, and, if we do not take
care, changes its character altogether, mastering us instead of being
kept in its fit place, and in check, as it ought to be by sense and
reason. From time to time, as Sir Tom made these reflections, there
would flit across his mind, as across a mirror, something which was not
thought, which was like a picture momentarily presented before him. One
of the most persistent of these, which flashed out and in upon his
senses like a view in a magic lantern, was of that moment in the midst
of the flurry of the election when little Tom, held up in his mother's
arms, had clapped his baby hands for his father. This for a second would
confound all his thoughts, and give his heart a pang as if some one had
seized and pressed it with an iron grasp; but the next moment he would
pick up the thread of his reflections again, and go on with them. That,
too, was merely mechanical, like all the little chap's existence up to
this point. Poor little chap! here Sir Tom stopped in his course of
thought, impeded by a weight at his heart which he could not shake off;
nor could he see the blurred and vague landscape round him--something
more blinding even than the fog had got into his eyes.

Then Sir Tom started and his heart sprang up to his throat beating
loudly. It was not anything of much importance, it was only the opening
of the window by which he himself had come out upon the terrace. He
turned round quickly, too anxious even to ask a question. If it had been
a king's messenger bringing him news that affected the whole kingdom, he
would have turned away with an impatient "Pshaw!" or struck the intruder
out of his way. But it was his wife, wrapped in a dressing-gown, pale
with watching, her hair pushed back upon her forehead, her eyes
unnaturally bright. "How is he?" cried Sir Tom, as if the question was
one of life or death.

Lucy told him, catching at his arm to support herself, that she thought
there was a little improvement. "I have been thinking so for the last
hour, not daring to think it, and yet I felt sure; and now nurse says so
too. His breathing is easier. I have been on thorns to come and tell
you, but I