'She quitted Sir Roderick's house to lodge your father safe in one that
she hired, and have him under her own care. She watched him day and
night for three weeks, and governed him, assisted only at intervals by
the poor frightened woman, Mrs. Waddy, and just as frightened me. And I
am still subject to the poor woman's way of pressing her hand to her
heart at a noise. It 's over now. Harry, Janet wished that you should
never hear of it. She dreads any excitement for him. I think she is
right in fancying her own influence the best: he is used to it. You know
how gentle she is though she is so firm.'

'Oh! don't torture me, ma'am, for God's sake,' I called aloud.




CHAPTER LV

I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT

There came to me a little note on foreign paper, unaddressed, an
enclosure forwarded by Janet, and containing merely one scrap from the
playful XENIEN of Ottilia's favourite brotherly poets, of untranslatable
flavour:--

Who shuns true friends flies fortune in the concrete:
Would he see what he aims at? let him ask his heels.

It filled me with a breath of old German peace.