The Family of Sunnybrow by Jb Author:John Bate General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1870 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: Gauntlett, which the lapse of years had not as yet succeeded in dissipating. It can well therefore be conceived that the shock occasioned to his mind by this new calamity, following so closely upon the former one, and embittered to him, moreover, by circumstances so harrowing in their nature, could not be very transient in its duration; the more so still, when it is further recollected that, in now losing his cousin, Mr. Gauntlett lost one who had become specially dear to him through her relationship to his beloved wife. It could be no matter of wonder, therefore, if this last melancholy event proved serious in its effects upon the already depressed spirit of the rector of Little- gate. Mr. Gauntlett now passed a much greater portion of his time than before in the solitude of his library; and when he occasionally appeared in company, it was with an abstracted air and a reservedness of manner which had hitherto been foreign to him. He attended, indeed, as regularly and carefully as ever to the duties of his sacred office : yet there was throughout an evident lack of that energy and vigour which had formerly been the characteristic of his ministrations. The hearty cheerfulness especially, with which he used to mix among his humble flock, and which had won so many of the simple rustics towards him, was now sadly missing; and grave fears were beginning to be entertained lest he, who had so often brought joy and gladness to the distressed and comfortless spirits of others, might be himself falling under the influence of a settled and resolute melancholy. This, however, was (happily) not destined so to be;...« less