He was glad it was over, and, for Polly's sake, that it had
passed off satisfactorily. It had made a poor enough start: at one
moment he had been within an ace of picking up his hat and stalking out.
But he found it difficult at the present happy crisis to bear a grudge--
even if it had not been a proved idiosyncrasy of his, always to let a
successful finish erase a bad beginning. None the less, he would not
have belonged to the nation he did, had he not indulged in a caustic
chuckle and a pair of good-humoured pishes and pshaws, at Turnham's
expense. "Like a showman in front of his booth!"
Then he thought again of the domestic scene he had been privileged to
witness, and grew grave. The beautiful young woman and her children
might have served as model for a Holy Family--some old painter's dream
of a sweet benign Madonna; the trampling babe as the infant Christ; the
upturned face of the little John adoring. No place this for the scoffer.
Apart from the mere pleasure of the eye, there was ample justification
for Turnham's transports. Were they not in the presence of one of life's
sublimest mysteries--that of motherhood? Not alone the lovely Emma: no;
every woman who endured the rigours of childbirth, to bring forth an
immortal soul, was a holy figure.
And now for him, too, as he had been reminded, this wonder was to be
worked. Little Polly as the mother of his children--what visions the
words conjured up! But he was glad Polly was just Polly, and not the
peerless creature he had seen.
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