For a few moments he was so totally engrossed by the meeting with his grandaughter that he did not even perceive me. Indeed, his agitation was as great as it might reasonably have been had years of absence separated them, instead of the few brief hours of a twenty miles’ drive; and it was only as she said, “Are you forgetting to thank Mr. Templeton, Papa?” that he turned round to greet me with all the warmth of his kindly nature.
It was to no purpose that I protested plans already formed, engagements made, and horses written for; he insisted on my staying, if not some weeks--some days--and at last, hours, at the Villa Cimarosa. I might still have resisted his kind entreaties, when Miss Howard, with a smile and a manner of most winning persuasiveness, said, “I wish you would stay,”--and------here I am!
How like a dream--a delicious, balmy, summer night’s dream--is this life I am leading! For the first time have I tasted the soothing tranquillity of domestic life. A uniformity, that tells rather of security than sameness, pervades every thing in this well-ordered household, where all come and go as if under the guidance of some ruling genius, unseen and unheard. Sir Gordon, too, is like a father; at least as I can fancy a father to be, for I was too early left an orphan to preserve my memory of either parent. His kindness is even more than what we call friendship. It is actually paternal. He watches over my health with all the unobtrusive solicitude of true affection; and if I even hint at departure, he seizes the occasion to oppose it, not with the warmth of hospitality alone, but a more deeply-meaning interest that sometimes puzzles me. Can it be that he recognises in my weakened frame and shrunken cheek, greater ravages of disease than I yet feel or know of? Is it that he perceives me nearer the goal than as yet I am aware? It was yesterday, as we sat in the library together, running over the pages of an almanac, I remarked something about my liking to travel by moonlight, when, with a degree of emotion that amazed me, he said, “Pray do not talk of leaving us; I know that in this quiet monotony there may be much to weary you; but remember that you are not strong enough for the world, did you even care to take your place in it as of old. Besides,”--here he faltered, and it was with a great effort that he resumed--“besides, for _my_ sake, if the selfishness of the request should not deter you, for _my_ sake remain with us some time longer.”