Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/628

198

Said I, one night, when I had conquered myself, "Mr. Granville"—Mr. Granville Wharton his name was,—"I doubt if you have ever yet so much as seen Miss Fareway."

"Well, sir," returned he, laughing, "you see her so much yourself, that you hardly give another fellow a chance of seeing her."

"I am her tutor, you know," said I.

And there the subject dropped for that time. But I so contrived as that they should come together shortly afterward. I had previously so contrived as to keep them asunder; for while I loved her—I mean before I had determined on my sacrifice—a lurking jealousy of Mr. Granville lay within my unworthy breast.

It was quite an ordinary interview in the Fareway Park; but they talked easily together for some time; like takes to like, and they had many points of resemblance. Said Mr. Granville to me, when he and I sat at our supper that night, "Miss Fareway is remarkably beautiful, sir, remarkably engaging. Don't you think so?" "I think so," said I. And I stole a glance at him, and saw that he had reddened and was thoughtful. I remembered most vividly, because the mixed feeling of grave pleasure and acute pain that the slight circumstances caused me was the first of a long, long series of such mixed impressions under which my hair turned slowly gray.

I had not much need to feign to be subdued; but I counterfeited to be older than I was in all respects (heaven knows! my heart being all too young the while), and feigned to be more of a recluse and bookworm than I had really become, and gradually set up more and more of a fatherly manner toward Adelina. Likewise I made my tuition less imaginative than before; separated myself from my poets and philosopliers; was careful to present them in their own light, and me, their lowly servant, in my own sliade. Moreover in the matter of apparel I was equally mindful; not that I had ever been dapper that way, but that I was slovenly now.

As I depressed myself with one hand, so did I labor to raise Mr. Granville with the other; directing his