How would Joe Brownlow's fancy turn out?
CHAPTER II. THE CHICKENS.
John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear,
"Though wedded we have been
These twice ten tedious years, yet we
No holiday have seen."—-Cowper.
No one could have much doubt how it had turned out, who looked, after
fifteen years, into that room where Joe Brownlow and his mother had
once sat tete-a-tete.
They occupied the two ends of the table still, neither looking much
older, in expression at least, for the fifteen years that had passed
over their heads, though the mother had-—after the wont of active old
ladies—-grown smaller and lighter, and the son somewhat more bald and
grey, but not a whit more careworn, and, if possible, even brighter.
On one side of him sat a little figure, not quite so thin, some
angles smoothed away, the black hair coiled, but still in resolute
little mutinous tendrils on the brow, not ill set off by a tuft of
carnation ribbon on one side, agreeing with the colour that touched
up her gauzy black dress; the face, not beautiful indeed—-but
developed, softened, brightened with more of sweetness and
tenderness-—as well as more of thought—-added to the fresh responsive
intelligence it had always possessed.
On the opposite side of the dinner-table were a girl of fourteen and
a boy of twelve; the former, of a much larger frame than her mother,
and in its most awkward and uncouth stage, hardly redeemed by the
keen ardour and inquiry that glowed in the dark eyes, set like two
hot coals beneath the black overhanging brows of the massive
forehead, on which the dark smooth hair was parted.
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