My father resumed thoughtfully, and in the tone of one who moralises:— “There are three great events in life, sir; birth, marriage, and death. None know how they are born, few know how they die. But I suspect that many can account for the intermediate phenomenon—I cannot.” “It was not for money,—it must have been for love,” observed Mr Squills; “and your young wife is as pretty as she is good.” “Ha!” said my father, “I remember.” “Do you, sir?” exclaimed Squills, highly amused. “How was it?” My father, as was often the case with him, protracted his reply, and then seemed rather to commune with himself than to answer Mr Squills. “The kindest, the best of men,” he murmured,—“_Abyssus Eruditionis_: and to think that he bestowed on me the only fortune he had to leave, instead of to his own flesh and blood, Jack and Kitty. All at least that I could grasp _deficiente manu_, of his Latin, his Greek, his Orientals. What do I not owe to him!” “To whom?” asked Squills. “Good Lord, what’s the man talking about?” “Yes, sir,” said my father rousing himself, “such was Giles Tibbets, M.A., _Sol Scientiarum_, tutor to the humble scholar you address, and father to poor Kitty. He left me his Elzevirs; he left me also his orphan daughter.” “Oh! as a wife—” “No, as a ward. So she came to live here. I am sure there was no harm in it. But my neighbours said there was, and the widow Weltraum told me the girl’s character would suffer. What could I do?—Oh yes, I recollect all now! I married her, that my old friend’s child might have a roof to her head, and come to no harm. You see I was forced to do her that injury, for after all, poor young creature, it was a sad lot for her. A dull book-worm like me—_cochleæ vitam agens_, Mr Squills—leading the life of a snail. But my shell was all I could offer to my poor friend’s orphan.” “Mr Caxton, I honour you,” said Squills emphatically, jumping up and spilling half a tumbler-full of scalding punch over my father’s legs. “You have a heart, sir! and I understand why your wife loves you. You seem a cold man; but you have tears in your eyes at this moment.” “I dare say I have,” said my father, rubbing his shins: “it was boiling!” “And your son will be a comfort to you both,” said Mr Squills, reseating himself, and, in his friendly emotion, wholly abstracted from all consciousness of the suffering he had inflicted. “He will be a dove of peace to your ark.” “I don’t doubt it,” said my father ruefully, “only those doves, when they are small, are a very noisy sort of birds—_non talium avium cantus somnum reducunt_. However, it might have been worse. Leda had twins.” “So had Mrs Barnabas last week,” rejoined the accoucheur. “Who knows what may be in store for you yet? Here’s a health to Master Caxton, and lots of brothers and sisters to him!”