"Looking back, it
seems as though my later happiness had soaked backwards through the
whole fabric, so that my joy in age has linked itself as by a
golden bridge to the old childish raptures." Then he looked
curiously at me, with a half-smile, and added, "But happy as I have
been, I find it in my heart to envy you. You hardly know how much
you are to be envied. You have no more partings to fear; your
beautiful past is all folded up, to be creased and tarnished no
more. You have had the love of wife and child--the one thing that I
have missed. You have had fame too; and you have drunk far deeper
of the cup of suffering than I. I look upon you," he said
laughingly, "as an old home-keeping captain, who has never done
anything but garrison duty, might look upon a young general who has
carried through a great campaign and is covered with signs of
honour."
A little while after he roused himself from a slumber to say, "You
will be surprised to find yourself named in my will; please don't
have any scruples about accepting the inheritance. I want my niece,
of course, to reign in my stead; but if you outlive her, all is to
go to you. I want you to live on in this place, to stand by her in
her loneliness, as a brother by a sister.
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