Page:The principal girl (IA principalgirl00snai).pdf/319

 If the truth must be told of this elderly gentleman, sorrow and envy were the occupants of his heart this lovely June morning, when even the metropolitan prospect was all that was fair and gracious. He was the most miserable grandfather in London, instead of being the proudest and happiest, as he certainly ought to have been.

In his stately progress he passed other grandfathers. They were walking with their sons and daughters, and with the sons and daughters of their sons and daughters, and looking immeasurably the better for the privilege. Surely, it was good to be a grandfather on this fine June morning. It seemed a perfectly honorable and rational and proper state of being.

Every yard he walked, the conviction grew firmer in him that this was the case. It was surely the duty of elderly gentlemen with well-brushed eyebrows to rejoice in that degree. There was a man he knew well, a member of Parliament, looking so pink and prosperous, with a small girl holding one hand and a small boy holding the other. Envy and sorrow were not in that heart, it was certain.

Could it be that his recent policy had been vain and weak and shortsighted? The great Proconsul had never asked himself such questions before, but it was becoming increasingly clear to him that he would have to be asking them presently. A grandfather had surely no