notwithstanding his disappointment and her faults, yea,
notwithstanding his own faults, which were, with all his cultivation
and strength of character, yet more serious than hers, he was still
kind to her; yes, I may say for him, that, notwithstanding even her
silliness, which is a sickening fault, and one which no supremacy of
beauty can overshadow, he still loved her a little. Hence the care he
showed for her in respect of the coming sorrow was genuine; it did not
all belong to his desire for a son to whom he might be a father
indeed--after his own fancies, however. Letty, on her part, was as
full of expectation as the girl who has been promised a doll that can
shut and open its eyes, and cry when it is pinched; her carelessness
of its safe arrival came of ignorance and not indifference.

It cannot but seem strange that such a man should have been so
careless of the child he had. But from the first she had painfully
reminded him of her mother, with whom in truth he had never
quarrelled, but with whom he had not found life the less irksome on
that account. Add to this that he had been growing fonder of
business,--a fact which indicated, in a man of his endowment and
development, an inclination downwards of the plane of his life. It was
some time since he had given up reading poetry. History had almost
followed: he now read little except politics, travels, and popular
expositions of scientific progress.

That year Christmas Eve fell upon a Monday. The day before, Letty not
feeling very well, her husband thought it better not to leave her, and
gave up going to church. Phosy was utterly forgotten, but she dressed
herself, and at the usual hour appeared with her prayer-book in her
hand ready for church. When her father told her that he was not going,
she looked so blank that he took pity upon her, and accompanied her to