When first broached to the father, this scheme had met with an
absolute denial that seemed to promise no hope of further consideration;
but the mother, accepting defeat at the time, had tried again and again,
with patient dexterity at favourable moments, till at last one proud day
the little room, with its bookshelves, a cast of Dante, and a strange
picture or two, was a beautiful, significant fact--all ready for the
possible visitation of the Muse.
In such ways had the mother negotiated the needs of all her children;
though the youth of the rest--save the eldest girl, whose music lessons
had meant a battle, and whose growing attractiveness for the boys of the
district, and one in particular, was presently to mean another--made as
yet but small demands. In one question, however, periodically fruitful
of argument, even the youngest was becoming interested,--the question of
the visits to the household of the various friends and playmates of the
children. To these, it must be admitted, James Mesurier was apt to be
hardly less of a figure of fear than to his own children; for, apart
from the fact that such inroads from without were apt to disturb his few
quiet evening hours with rollicking and laughter, he, being entirely
unsocial in his own nature, had a curious idea that the family should be
sufficient to itself, and that the desire for any form of entertainment
outside it was a sign of dissatisfaction with God's gifts of a good
home, and generally a frivolity to be discouraged.
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