If she could she
might be happier.
"The general was a kindly man, sharp of face and of a tall thin
figure, but with an eye to draw children and make them happy with
a look. But his effect on the father was different. From the
moment the two met in the great hall below, the temper of the host
betrayed how little he welcomed this guest. He did not fail in
courtesy - the Moores are always gentlemen - but it was a hard
courtesy, which cut while it flattered. The two children, shrinking
from its edge without knowing what it was that hurt them, slunk to
covert, and from behind the two pillars which mark the entrance to
the library, watched the two men as they walked up and down the
halls discussing the merits of this and that detail of the freshly
furnished mansion. These two innocent, but eager spies, whom fear
rather than curiosity held in hiding, even caught some of the
sentences which passed between tire so-called friends; and though
these necessarily conveyed but little meaning to their childish
minds, the words forming them were never forgotten, as witness
these phrases confided to me by Mistress Callista twenty-five years
afterward.
"'You have much that most men lack,' remarked the general, as they
paused to admire some little specimen of Italian art which had been
lately received from Genoa.
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