"
Tison, all unheeded now, had leapt to the floor and, during this address,
had stood directly in front of the speaker, barking furiously until Imogen,
her lips compressed, her forehead flushed, stooped, picked him up, and
flung him out of the room.
Mrs. Upton had sat quite motionless, only lifting her glance now and then
to Mr. Potts's shaking beard and flashing eye. And, after another pause,
in which only Mr. Potts's deep breathing was heard,--and the desperate
scratching at the door of the banished Tison,--she said in somber
tones:--"I think you forget, Mr. Potts, that I was never one of my
husband's appreciators. I am sorry to be forced to recall this fact to your
memory."
It had been in all their memories, of course, a vague, hovering
uncertainty, a dark suspicion that one put aside and would not look at. But
to have it now placed before them, and in these cold, these somber tones,
was to receive an icy douche of reality, to be convicted of over-ready
hope, over-generous confidence.
It was Imogen, again, who found words for the indignant deputation: "Is
that lamentable fact any reason why those who do appreciate him should not
share their knowledge with others?"
"I think it is;--I hope so, Imogen," her mother replied, not raising her
eyes to her.
"You tell us that your own ignorance and blindness is to prevent us from
writing my father's life?"
"My opinion of your father's relative insignificance is, I think, a
sufficient reason.
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