"We'll see, one of these days, perhaps," was Manly's quiet remark;
and the friends parted company.

Ten years often make a great difference in a man's condition,
habits, and feelings. Ten years passed away, and Mr. Pelby was a
husband, and the father of three interesting children,--indulged, of
course, and "pretty considerably" spoiled, yet interesting withal,
and, in the eyes of their father, not to be compared for beauty,
good manners, etc. with any other children inhabiting the same city.
William, the oldest boy, had not quite completed his sixth year.
Emma, a rosy-cheeked, chubby little thing, when asked her age, could
say--

"Four years old last June."

And Henry was just the age that Tommy Little was when he so terribly
annoyed Mr. Pelby. Now, as to Henry's accomplishments, they were
many and various. He could be a good boy when he felt in a pleasant
humour, and could storm, and fret, and pout in a way so well
understood by all parents, that it would be a work of supererogation
to describe it here. But strange mutation of disposition!--Mr. Pelby
could bear these fits of perverseness with a philosophy that would
have astonished even himself, could he have for a moment realized
his former state of mind. When Henry became ill-tempered from any
cause, he had, from loving him, learned that to get into an
ill-humour also would be only adding fuel to flame; and so, on such
occasions, he sought affectionately to calm and soothe his ruffled
feelings. If Henry, or Emma, or William, from any exuberance of
happy feelings, were noisy or boisterous, he did not think it right