Henry was standing on the threshold, and the warm-hearted little woman gave him a hearty hug of welcome.
"Well, I _am_ glad to see you! And how are they all at home?" and she ran over the list, name for name. "We mustn't forget your father. But he's a hard 'un and no mistake," said the aunt, putting on a mimic expression of severity.
"He's an upright man, is James Mesurier," said Mr. Tipping, rather severely.
"Oh, yes, yes; we know that, crosspatch. I'm saying nothing against him. He's good at heart, I know; but he's a little hard on the surface--like some other folks I know," making a face at her husband. "But you must come down and talk to me a bit, lad; you'll have had enough of him and his old books. You never saw the like of him! Here he sits day after day over his musty books, and you can hardly get him away for his meals. He's no company for any one."
"Talk of something you can understand, lass," retorted the husband, in a voice that took any unkindness from the words, rather like a father than a husband. "You don't ail much for lack of company, I'm sure."
"Now if it was only a good novel," his wife persisted; "but nothing but travels, geographies, and such like. Last thing he's taken up with is the stars. I suppose he's been telling you about them--" and she said this half as though it were a new form of lunacy Mr. Tipping had developed, and half as though he had been opening up new realms of knowledge--original but useless. She was far indeed from understanding that lonely mind and its tragedy, thirsting so hopelessly for knowledge, and to die athirst. She heard him knock, knock all day upstairs; but the knocking told her nothing of his loneliness. He was just a good, hard-working, rather cross old man, unaccountably fond of printed matter, whom she liked to be good to, and if in her time that knocking upstairs should stop for ever--well! she wasn't one to meet trouble half way, but she would miss it a good deal, old man as he was.
She was herself nearing fifty; but her slim little wiry body and her elfish, wrinkled face, never still, but ever alive with the same vivacity that years ago had attracted William Allsopp, made her seem younger than her years; and her husband treated her as though she were still a child, a wilful child.