The MS. in a Red BoxHamilton, John A. (John Arthur)
History
The MS. in a Red Box
Hamilton, John A. (John Arthur)
Axholme, Isle of (England) -- History -- Fiction
"I have no inducement to visit the settlement while you are at the
vicarage, which is a much more fitting abode for you than a hut at
Sandtoft."
"So Mrs. Graves will have it, and in her kindness would detain me here
I know not how long; but my place is with my father, and he is by
agreement physician to the settlers. You are not to think that my
father brought me thoughtlessly to Sandtoft."
How beautiful she looked as she bent forward, her face aglow with love
and pride!
"He is not so much absorbed in science as to forget his care for his
daughter. Oh no, indeed! He would have had me stay in Leyden, when he
fled. He entreated, almost commanded me to go to the care of friends
in Amsterdam, when he left Paris, and to remain there until he had a
suitable home for me in England. But what is home? Do masons and
carpenters make it? For me, it is where my father lives. My mother
died in my seventh year, and my father did his utmost to make up my
loss. His grief made him an old man before his time: his days were
filled with labour, and the most learned and polished society in Europe
made claim on his leisure, but nothing was allowed to interfere with
his tender care of his little daughter. He continued his great love
for his wife in his love for her motherless child. Pardon me that I
say all this, but I could not bear that you should misconstrue my
father."
I forgot to answer, looking up with pure delight into the beaming eyes.
Surely, she cared something for me, unworthy as I was, since she wished
that I should respect her father as he deserved. At length I replied
softly--
"I count it great honour that you have told me."
But my new reverence for Doctor Goel was instantly in danger, for he
came up to us, a cabbage-leaf in one hand and his magnifying-glass in
the other, and pointed out something to his daughter in great
excitement. He turned to me while she looked, and plunged into
English, of which I reproduce the sense, not the exact words--
"Your great Bacon thought that caterpillars were engendered of dew and
leaves by putrefaction. But it is not so. They come from eggs, laid
by the butterfly. It is one more instance to confirm the theory that
every living thing derives its being from a parent."
And the old gentleman rubbed his hands and smiled, as if he had found a
diamond. 'Twas all I could do to refrain from laughing at this ado
about some tiny caterpillars on a cabbage-leaf, but Mistress Goel
seemed to enter into her father's pleasure, and, to my astonishment,
said something to him in Latin, as if quoting a book, to which he
replied by a long sentence in the same language. Then he returned to
the harness-room, taking his precious cabbage-leaf with him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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