Der Praefekt

discourse such pleasant music, that violoncello
    of his;—ah, how happy he had been! but it was over now; his easy
    days and absence of work had been the crime which brought on him his
    tribulation; his shady home was pleasant no longer; maybe it was no
    longer his; the old neighbours, whose welfare had been so desired by
    him, were his enemies; his daughter was as wretched as himself; and
    even the bishop was made miserable by his position.  He could never
    again lift up his voice boldly as he had hitherto done among his
    brethren, for he felt that he was disgraced; and he feared even to
    touch his bow, for he knew how grievous a sound of wailing, how
    piteous a lamentation, it would produce.
     
    He was still sitting in the same chair and the same posture, having
    hardly moved a limb for two hours, when Eleanor came back to tea, and
    succeeded in bringing him with her into the drawing-room.
     
    The tea seemed as comfortless as the dinner, though the warden, who
    had hitherto eaten nothing all day, devoured the plateful of bread and
    butter, unconscious of what he was doing.
     
    Eleanor had made up her mind to force him to talk to her, but she
    hardly knew how to commence: she must wait till the urn was gone, till
    the servant would no longer be coming in and out.
     
    At last everything was gone, and the drawing-room door was permanently
    closed; then Eleanor, getting up and going round to her father, put
    her arm round his neck, and said, “Papa, won’t you tell me what it
    is?”
     
    “What what is, my dear?”
     
    “This new sorrow that torments you; I know you are unhappy, papa.”
     
    “New sorrow! it’s no new sorrow, my dear; we have all our cares
    sometimes;” and he tried to smile, but it was a ghastly failure; “but
    I shouldn’t be so dull a companion; come, we’ll have some music.”
     
    “No, papa, not tonight,—it would only trouble you tonight;” and she
    sat upon his knee, as she sometimes would in their gayest moods, and
    with her arm round his neck, she said: “Papa, I will not leave you
    till you talk to me; oh, if you only knew how much good it would do
    to you, to tell me of it all.”
     
    The father kissed his daughter, and pressed her to his heart; but
    still he said nothing: it was so hard to him to speak of his own
    sorrows; he was so shy a man even with his own child!
     
    “Oh, papa, do tell me what it is; I know it is about the hospital, and
    what they are doing up in London, and what that cruel newspaper has
    said; but if there be such cause for sorrow, let us be sorrowful
    together; we are all in all to each other now: dear, dear papa, do
    speak to me.”
     
    Mr Harding could not well speak now, for the warm tears were running
    down his cheeks like rain in May, but he held his child close to his
    heart, and squeezed her hand as a lover might, and she kissed his
    forehead and his wet cheeks, and lay upon his bosom, and comforted him
    as a woman only can do.
     
    “My own child,” he said, as soon as his tears would let him speak, “my
    own, own child, why should you too be unhappy before it is necessary?
    It may come to that, that we must leave this place, but till that time
    comes, why should your young days be clouded?”
     
    “And is that all, papa?  If that be all, let us leave it, and have
    light hearts elsewhere: if that be all, let us go.  Oh, papa, you and
    I could be happy if we had only bread to eat, so long as our hearts
    were light.”
     
    And Eleanor’s face was lighted up with enthusiasm as she told her
    father how he might banish all his care; and a gleam of joy shot
    across his brow as this idea of escape again presented itself, and
    he again fancied for a moment that he could spurn away from him the
    income which the world envied him; that he could give the lie to that
    wielder of the tomahawk who had dared to write such things of him in
    _The Jupiter_; that he could leave Sir Abraham, and the archdeacon,
    and Bold, and the rest of them with their lawsuit among them, and
    wipe his hands altogether of so sorrow-stirring a concern.  Ah, what
    happiness might there be in the distance, with Eleanor and him in some
    small cottage, and nothing left of their former grandeur but their
    music!  Yes, they would walk forth with their music books, and their
    instruments, and shaking the dust from off their feet as they went,
    leave the ungrateful place. Never did a poor clergyman sigh for a warm
    benefice more anxiously than our warden did now to