One of her most devout fellow-worshippers was Mrs.Herbert, who derived comfort from the fact that little Willie was not ashamed of her as little Willie's mother was; so--like many a disappointed woman before them--both Mrs.Herbert and Elisabeth discovered the healing power which lies in the touch of a baby's hand.

Felicia loved the child, too, in her way; but she was of the type of woman to whom the husband is always dearer than the children.

But Alan's cup was filled to overflowing, and he loved his son as he loved his own soul.
One of Christopher's expedients for hiding the meditations of his heart from Elisabeth's curious eyes was the discussion with her of what people call "general subjects"; and this tried her temper to the utmost.

She regarded it as a sign of superficiality to talk of superficial things; and she hardly ever went in to dinner with a man without arriving at the discussion of abstract love and the second _entree_ simultaneously.
It had never yet dawned upon her that as a rule it is because one has not experienced a feeling that one is able to describe it; she reasoned in the contrary direction, and came to the conclusion that those persons have no hearts at all whose sleeves are unadorned with the same.
Therefore it was intolerable to her when Christopher--who had played with her as a child, and had once very nearly made her grow up into a woman--talked to her about the contents of the newspapers.
"I never look at the papers," she answered crossly one day, in reply to some unexceptionable and uninteresting comment of his upon such history as was just then in the raw material; "I hate them." "Why do you hate them ?" Christopher was surprised at her vehemence.
"Because there is cholera in the South of France, and I never look at the papers when there is cholera about, it frightens me so." Elisabeth had all the pity of a thoroughly healthy person for the suffering that could not touch her, and the unreasoning terror of a thoroughly healthy person for the suffering which could.
"But there is nothing to frighten you in that," said Christopher, in his most comforting tone; "France is such a beastly dirty hole that they are bound to have diseases going on there, such as could never trouble clean, local-boarded, old England.

And then it's so far away, too.