This going away was kept so constantly before my mind that I could not forget it for a moment. I lived in a constant state of nervous expectation. Every day when he came in I went to meet him with a pang of fear in my heart. Such constant anxiety would have made a woman ill who had nothing to do; but I was full in the stream of life, and one thing counterbalanced another, and kept everything going. That must be the reason why people do get strength to bear so many things when they are in the midst of life. Young disengaged people would die of half the troubles that middle-aged, hard-labouring people have; but I had a daily dread returning every time Harry returned, and with a shiver of inexpressible relief put off my anxiety to the next day, when I found there was no news. All the evils of life seemed to crowd into that one possibility of Harry’s going away. It was not that I feared any positive harm coming to him, or had made up my mind that he would not come back again; it was the sudden extinction of our bright troubled life that I looked forward to, the going out of our happiness. I did not seem to care where I should be, or what might happen after that time. In the meantime Harry grew quite a man of business, and entered with something like enjoyment, I thought, into the pursuit of my grandfather’s house. He wrote to Aunt Connor for all the information that could be had about my father, and for the register of his marriage and my birth. He wrote a long letter to that Mr. Pendleton at Haworth, who had, as he said, something to do with it; and old Pendleton, the surgeon, came out to see me, and told me all he remembered about my father. That was not very much; the principal thing was, that he had heard of poor papa being jilted by a relation of his own, a great heiress--in Wales, he thought, but he could not tell where. Of course that must have been Sarah, in poor papa’s drawing, who was getting on the wrong side of her horse; and “he never did any more good,” Mr. Pendleton said. He lingered about at home for some time, and then went wandering about everywhere. He had a little money from his mother, just enough to keep him from being obliged to do anything; and the old surgeon burst out into an outcry about the evils of a little money, which quite frightened me. “When silly people leave a young man just as much as he can live on, they ruin him for life,” said old Mr. Pendleton. “Unless he’s a great genius there’s an end of him. Richard Mortimer, begging your pardon, was not a great genius, Mrs. Langham; but he might have been a good enough soldier, or doctor, or solicitor, or something; or a cotton-spinner, as his name inclined that way,--if it hadn’t been for his little bit of money. Langham, my boy, either have a great fortune or none at all; it will be all the better for your heir.” “We’ll have a great fortune,” said Harry. “The first step must be to sell this red-brick house.”