This name had been given him by his dying mother
when, at her request, the child was baptized in her chamber, lest he
should not survive for public baptism; and her husband had never
thought of it as a name of any significance till, about this time,
he learnt by accident that it was the name of the young Marquis of
Christminster, son of the Duke of Southwesterland, for whom Annetta
had cherished warm feelings before her marriage. Recollecting some
wandering phrases in his wife's last words, which he had not
understood at the time, he perceived at last that this was the
person to whom she had alluded when affording him a clue to little
Rupert's history.
He would sit in silence for hours with the child, being no great
speaker at the best of times; but the boy, on his part, was too
ready with his tongue for any break in discourse to arise because
Timothy Petrick had nothing to say. After idling away his mornings
in this manner, Petrick would go to his own room and swear in long
loud whispers, and walk up and down, calling himself the most
ridiculous dolt that ever lived, and declaring that he would never
go near the little fellow again; to which resolve he would adhere
for the space perhaps of a day. Such cases are happily not new to
human nature, but there never was a case in which a man more
completely befocled his former self than in this.
As the child grew up, Timothy's attachment to him grew deeper, till
Rupert became almost the sole object for which he lived.
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