With him was born her future--it was a most
complete realization of those sweet wise words of the poet,--
"a child, more than all other gifts
That earth can offer to declining man,
Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts."
Mr. Granger was enraptured. For him, too, even more than for his wife, this
baby represented the future. Often and often, after some brilliant stroke
of business which swelled the figures upon the left side of his bank-book
to an abnormal amount, he had felt a dismal sense of the extinction that
must befall his glory by-and-by. There was no one but Sophia. She would
inherit a fortune thrice as large as any woman need desire, and would
in all likelihood marry, and give her wealth to fill the coffers of a
stranger, whose name should wipe out the name of Granger--or preserve it
in a half-and-half way in some inane compound, such, as Granger-Smith,
or Jones-Granger, extended afterwards into Jones-Granger-Jones, or
Granger-Smith-Granger.
Perhaps those wintry days that began the new year were the purest, happiest
of Daniel Granger's life. He forgot that his wife did not love him. She
seemed so much more his wife, seated opposite to him beside that quiet
hearth, with her baby in her arms. She made such a lovely picture, bending
over the child in her unconscious beauty. To sit and watch the two was an
all-sufficient delight for him--sometimes withdrawing his mind from the
present, to weave the web of his boy's future.
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