Valentine repeated what Miss Melcombe had told him.

"So no doubt, papa, you'll give orders that it shall not be touched, as you are going to have all the place put in order." "Yes, yes, certainly my boy--certainly he will," said Uncle Augustus, answering for his brother.
Valentine was not gifted with at all more feeling or sentiment than usually falls to the lot of a youth of his age, but a sort of compunction visited him at that moment to think how soon they all, alive and well, had invaded the poor old woman's locked and guarded sanctuary! He stooped to gather another lily, and offered the flowers to his father.

Old Daniel looked at the lilies, but his unready hand did not move forward to take them; in fact, it seemed that he slightly shrank back.

With an instantaneous flash of surprise Valentine felt rather than thought, "If you were dead, father, I would not decline to touch what you had loved." But in the meantime his uncle had put forth a hand and received them.

"And yet," thought Valentine, "I know father must have felt that old lady's death.