Parents and Children Read Online Free Page B

sentiment and throb with experience. He glanced at the portraits of his dead son and daughter, as if his emotion prepared the way for recalling them; and sang on, as though the possession of life overcame all else.
    His wife followed his look and his thought, though her eyes were not on him. She would have given her life for her children’s,and knew he would have done this for nothing at all, and accepted and supported his feeling. The pair lived with their son and his family, feeling amongst and not apart from them. They saw themselves as so young for their age, that they shared the common future. They were neither of them quite ordinary people, but they were ordinary in this.
    â€˜Well, don’t I deserve a word to myself on the eve of my banishment?’ said Fulbert.
    â€˜You do, Father,’ said Luce, ‘and you would have had it, if you had not contrived to forfeit it. I cannot see how we are to live the next six months. We shall have to take each day as it comes.’
    â€˜Why is that a help?’ said Graham. ‘It seems to spin things out. It would be better if we could compress the days.’
    â€˜Graham, are you going to let these months be different?’ said Daniel.
    â€˜I have not heard either of you say a reasonable word for days,’ said Eleanor.
    â€˜Mother, let them veil the occasion in their own way,’ said Luce.
    â€˜Our boyish folly covers real feeling,’ said Graham, stating the truth of himself.
    â€˜Would you like to be going with your father, Daniel?’ said Eleanor.
    â€˜Mother, don’t speak in that cold voice,’ said Luce, laughing, ‘It is not Daniel’s fault that Father has to leave us.’
    â€˜He can answer my question nevertheless. Your father is going partly for his sake.’
    â€˜It is a good thing that everything is easier when it is shared,’ said Daniel. ‘If there were enough of us, I suppose it would disappear.’
    â€˜You would think there were enough,’ said Graham, dreamily.
    â€˜I am tired of hearing nothing but nonsense,’ said Eleanor, with a break in her voice.
    â€˜Graham, how many young men have heard their mothers use that tone!’
    â€˜I daresay the larger number,’ said Eleanor, sighing.
    Sir Jesse broke again into song, and sang very low, as if unsureof the fitness of the words for the audience. Regan smiled with an indulgence that was more apposite than she knew, or betrayed that she knew; and Fulbert took up the song in a strong, metallic voice and with a certain gusto. Graham kept his eyes down, as if he could only meet the manifestation with discomfiture, and Sir Jesse flashed his eyes into his son’s and turned to his luncheon.
    Luce had sat with her eyes on the men, and now addressed her father, as if quietly putting behind her what she saw.
    â€˜Father, is there any writing to be done? I had better undertake it, as my hand is clear.’
    â€˜This is an awkward moment for Graham,’ said Daniel.
    â€˜After my advantages,’ said Graham, in his absent tone.
    â€˜I had a reminder of those only this morning,’ said Sir Jesse. ‘An account came with my breakfast. You had nothing at yours but what you could swallow.’
    â€˜It is impossible of Graham,’ aid Daniel. ‘Simply eating at the table! He seems to live by bread alone.’
    â€˜Be silent,’ said Sir Jesse, with sudden harshness. ‘I blush to think you have been brought up in my house.’
    â€˜We have always had to blush for that,’ muttered Daniel. ‘But I did not think Grandpa would ever do so.’
    â€˜Will neither of you speak again until you have something to say?’ said Eleanor.
    â€˜Would you have the lads dumb?’ said her husband.
    â€˜It might strike many people as an improvement.’
    â€˜Mother, you don’t mind what you say,’ said Luce, laughing under her breath.
    â€˜You must grow up, my sons,’