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Brother and Sister
If Susanna's path had grown more difficult, more filled with anxieties, so had
John Hathaway's. The protracted absence of his wife made the gossips conclude
that the break was a final one. Jack was only half contented with his aunt,
and would be fairly mutinous in the winter, while Louisa's general attitude
was such as to show clearly that she only kept the boy for Susanna's sake.
Now and then there was a terrifying hint of winter in the air, and the days of
Susanna's absence seemed eternal to John Hathaway. Yet he was a man about whom
there would have been but one opinion: that when deprived of a rather superior
and high-minded wife and the steadying influence of home and children, he
would go completely "to the dogs," whither he seemed to be hurrying when
Susanna's wifely courage failed. That he had done precisely the opposite and
the unexpected thing, shows us perhaps that men are not on the whole as
capable of estimating the forces of their fellow men as is God the maker of
men, who probably expects something of the worst of them up to the very last.
It was at the end of a hopeless Sunday when John took his boy back to his
aunt's towards night.
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