If we strike the average of mankind, we shall find Rufus Hutton above it. He had his many littlenesses—and which of us has few?—his oddities of mind and manner, even his want of charity, and his practical faith in selfishness; none the less for all of that there were many people who loved him. And those of us who are loved of any—save parents, wife, or daughter—loved, I mean, as the word is felt and not interpreted,—with warmth of heart, and moistened eyes (when good or ill befalls us); any such may have no doubt of being loved by God. All this while, Sir Cradock Nowell had been alone; and, as Homer has it, “feeding on his heart”. Ever since that fearful time, when, going home to his happy dinner with a few choice friends, he had overtaken some dark thing, which he would not let them hide from him—ever since that awful moment when he saw what it was, the father had not taken food, nor comfort of God or man. All they did—well–meaning people—was of no avail. It was not of disgrace he thought, of one son being murdered, and the other son his murderer; he did not count his generations, score the number of baronets, and weep for the slur upon them; rave of his painted scutcheon, and howl because this was a dab on it. He simply groaned and could not eat, because he had lost his son—his own, his sweet, his best–beloved son. As for Cradock, the father hoped—for he had not now the energy to care very much about it—that he might not _happen_ henceforth to meet him (for all things now were of luck) more than once a month, perhaps; and then they need not say much. He never could care for him any more; of that he felt as sure as if his heart were become a tombstone. Young Cradock, though they coaxed and petted, wept before him at the parsonʼs, and still more behind him, and felt for him so truly deeply that at last he burst out crying (which did him Heavenʼs own good)—Cradock, on his part, would not go to his father, until he should be asked for. He felt that he could fall on his knees, and crawl along in abasement, for having robbed the old grey man of all he loved on earth. Only his father must ask for him, or at least give him leave to come. Perhaps he was wrong. Let others say. But in the depths of his grief he felt the need of a fatherʼs love; and so his agony was embittered because he got no signs of it. Let us turn to luckier people. “Rufus, why, my darling Rufus, how much more——are you going to put on that little piece of ground, no bigger than my work–table”? Mrs. Hutton had been brought up to “call a spade a spade”; and she extended this wise nomenclature to the contents of the spade as well. “Rosa, why, my darling Rosa, that bed contains one hundred and twenty–five feet. Now, according to the great Justus Liebig, and his mineral theory——” “One hundred and twenty–five feet, Rue! And I could jump across it! I am sure it is not half so long as my silk measure in the shell, dear”!