The younger children--Esther and Dot and Mat used sometimes to say to
each other--would grow up in a more clement atmosphere of home than had
been Henry's and theirs. Already they were quietly assuming privileges,
and nothing said, that would have meant beatings for their elders. For
these things had Henry and Esther gladly faced martyrdom. Henry had
looked on the Promised Land, but been denied an entrance there. By his
stripes this younger generation would be healed.
The elder girls hastened to draw close to their father in gratitude, and
home breathed a kinder, freer air than ever had been known before.
Between Esther and her father particularly a kind of comradeship began
to spring up, which perhaps more than ever made the mother miss her boy.
But, all the same, home was growing old. This was the kindness of the
setting sun!
Childless middle age is no doubt often dreary to contemplate, yet is it
an egoistical bias which leads one to find in such limitation, or one
might rather say preservation, of the ego, a certain compensation? The
childless man or woman has at least preserved his or her individuality,
as few fathers and mothers of large families are suffered to do.
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