Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/67

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Chapter VII

ABOUT this time it began to be noticed by his friends that Judge Tyler would give up without a struggle any question which might arise between his avowed intentions and the dictates of his heart. But this was without weakness, for his heart was no longer his own. True, it continued to beat within his dignified frame, but no longer with the tap of habit and education; it fluttered in airy flights, like the heart of a mother chicken, looked at bank accounts through glasses that magnified, and saw in all the world but one treasure, its master and its adopted son—Tomas Beauling, ætat five.

Judge Tyler rearranged portions of his house, became a student of sweets, a patron of toy-shops, and a master of Mother Goose. He bent his mind to teach, as gently as possible, a little boy how to