Charles went away from the town at some time after that and did not return. Anthony was palsied in his hands, but he would stop in his stroll along the path and beat the ground sharply with his cane, tapping on the bricks or on the boards under his feet. “Oh, tut!” he would say. Sometimes Theodosia would see him in his mantle of old age as he stepped uncertainly along, and a pang of pity, self-pity, fear, and apprehension would assail her. Or, seeing his shrunken form, his feet questioning the path for a place, she herself would walk there and she would see through her present self as through a swift glass, quickly adjusted for vision, as would say, “See, bent spine, eyes fixed, gestures squared at their turnings, the up-and-down jog of age.” But her life ran upon itself eagerly and there were other things to see. He would begin to sing as formerly, letting his voice fall away to a whisper when it failed in its tone. “Oh, tut!” he would say, returning to mumble his old knowledge, reiterating himself endlessly. “Yet hath the shepherd boy at some times raised his rustic reed to rhymes more rumbling than rural, more rumbling than rural.” Theodosia had won a diploma at the Seminary. She was a tall girl now, fragile but quick, swift at the girls’ sports. “She must study to play the fiddle. She’s a master fiddler,” the old man said, stepping more briskly over the boards. “With rhymes more rumbling than rural.... She must. She gets her music two ways, Charlotte and the Trotters. Old Matthew Trotter was a master musicianer in his day, and had red hair.... Yet hath the shepherd boy.... I’ll see to the matter myself.... A small matter, a few paltry dollars to buy instruction for a girl of talent.... Oh, tut! What became of the farmland, sixteen hundred broad acres, I had? Well, I’ll say, ask her aunt Doe for the small sum. A rich farm, she’s got, and not a chick or a child to spend on. ‘Madam, your one namesake, your only godchild, has a rare musical gift. Madam, are you aware that your namesake has a bit of a musical talent? Has it ever occurred to you to give the child a gift, a year in the metropolis maybe? Madam! Your humble servant. Yours very truly, Anthony Bell. Give the child a big red apple. A peach plucked from the peach orchard. Send the child the first peach of the season. Namesake! For God’s sake! Has it ever occurred to you, Madam, to do something you might call substantial for the baby, your namesake? If your husband, Tom Singleton, had lived it would occur to him. To reward his wife’s namesake. God knows it would!’ ... Oh tut!... What became of the farmland, my patrimony? ‘Young Man, your only daughter.’ ... God’s sake!... As well talk to a jacksnipe. ‘Horace, your daughter approaches her maturity lacken a few miserable pennies to buy her a bit of a finish in music.’ I’ll see to the matter myself.” TWO