Avoiding, after his habit, the actual sensations of horror, Moore took his wife out for a drive while the funeral was going on. There is no doubt, as I have said already, something unmasculine in all this shrinking from the physical impression, and one may trace something of the luxury of grief in the detailed recital. But the note with which it closes has the true accent of tragedy:--
"And such is the end of so many years of fondness and of hope; and nothing is left us but the dream (which may God in his mercy realise), that we shall see our pure child again in a world more worthy of her."
Gradually, however, time healed the rawness of the wound, and in June of the same year, a new interest was added to Moore's London visits. His eldest boy, Tom, was installed at the Charterhouse, on a nomination secured through Lord Grey, and from this onward the Diary is full of references to the boy's charming (but idle) ways. Moore records dinners with Master Tom,--"who, bless the dear fellow, was more amusing than any of the _beaux esprits_,"--compliments on his beauty, valued all the more because a likeness was noted to his mother, and, in short, gives every instance of parental fondness. We read less perhaps about the other boy, Lord John Russell's godson and namesake, who entered the same school a year or two later, Sir Robert Peel this time giving the nomination. But of both his boys Moore was mighty fond and proud, and it was a moment of great happiness in his life when, in 1830, he conveyed Bessy and the pair of them to Dublin for a visit to his other home in Abbey Street.
"My sweet sister Nell, just the same gentle spirit as ever; both in great delight with our boys; and my dear Bess never looked so handsome as she did sitting by my mother, with a face bearing the utmost sweetness and affection, all for my sake. Had a most happy family dinner."
The happiness lasted through the visit of six weeks. It was fifteen years since Bessy Moore had been in Ireland, and then she had not lived in the same house with her husband's folk, who consequently knew her mainly by report. "They have now, however," Moore writes, "had her with them as one of themselves, and the result has been what I never could doubt it would be."