latter in a state of transport.

"Here, Jenny, here he is; you have the first claim; confound it,
Charley, Maria, don't strangle the boy; ha, ha, ha!"

In fact, the precaution, so far as the affectionate brother and sister
were concerned, was anything but needless. His mother, seeing their
eagerness to embrace him, which they did with tears of delight, stood
calmly by until he was disentangled from their arms, when she approached
him and imprinted two kisses upon his lips, with an indifference of
manner that, to a stranger, would have been extraordinary, but which,
to those who were present, excited no surprise; for she had scarcely,
during her life, ever kissed one of her own children. Nothing, indeed,
could exceed the tumultuous exultation of spirits with which they
received him, nor was honest Lindsay himself less joyously affected. Yet
it might be observed that there was a sparkle in the eye of his mother,
which was as singular as it was concentrated and intense. Such an
expression might be observed in a menagerie when a tigress, indolently
dallying with one of her cubs, exhibits, even in repose, those fiery
scintillations in the eye which startle the beholders. The light of that
eye, though intense, was cold, calculating, and disagreeable to look
upon. The frigidity of her manner and reception of him might, to a
certain extent, be accounted for from the fact that she had gone to his
uncle's several times for the purpose of seeing him, and watching his
interests. Let us not, therefore, impute to the coldness of her habits
any want of affection for him; on the contrary, his little finger was a
thousand times dearer to her than the bodies and souls of all her other
children, adding to them her husband himself, put together. Besides,
she was perfectly unsusceptible of emotions of tenderness, and,
consequently, a woman of powerful will, inflexible determination, and