How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
It was easy for him to love, and he loved the baby. He would have died before he would have let anyone guess he was so simple, but Aunt Lorne knew. Sometimes she would come into the kitchen quietly and hear Johnny holding long, one-sided conversations with Rabbit. When she came into the room where he was with the child, he would merely say scornfully, "Aunt Lorne, I think it is wet," and pretend to be lost in his book.
Then she would feel so fond of the lonely boy, who never knew he was lonely, and so amused at his pretense of scorn for something he in his heart loved, she could not help but kiss him.
[…]
Johnny thought Rab was lucky to have an aunt like that. (5.2.35-37)
In this passage, we see that Johnny has trouble expressing emotion toward people he loves. Does the Lorne family's acceptance of Johnny help him with that? Does it get easier for him as the novel progresses?
Quote #5
Now Johnny no longer kept half of the money he and Goblin earned carrying letters. He charged the British officers such a figure (and they never complained), he was bringing in a considerable sum and he gave it all to Aunt Lorne to buy food for her family, of which he was one. At first she wouldn't take it, then she cried and kissed him on the little peak of hair that turned down upon his forehead, and did take it. (7.2.1)
Boston Harbor is bottled up, which has destroyed Boston's economy and driven the price of food sky high. Johnny gives all his earnings to Aunt Lorne to buy food. What does this say about how Johnny and Aunt Lorne view his place in the Lorne family?
Quote #6
Other books were scattered on the floor. Johnny picked up a heavy Bible, hoping that this, too, would prove to be a box. He put it on the desk and opened it. There were sheets of paper between the Old and New Testaments. Here a man might write his genealogy.
[…]
Scratched out in such a way he had at first thought it was a mere decoration on the elaborately written page, there was another name. It was Lavinia Lyte. He held the lantern closer. Born 1740. Married to Doctor Charles Latour, both of whom had died of plague in Marseilles shortly before his own birth. His mother had told him he had been born in France and that his father had died before his own birth. But why Doctor Charles Latour? And why had his mother's name been scratched off the family record? But nevertheless, this was the spot—the very spot where he might hang his own few meager leaves to the Lyte tree.
Although in his day-dreaming he had often pictured himself a nephew, grandnephew, or even a grandson, of Merchant Lyte, he had never once believed the relationship was that close. Now he checked over the generations. His grandfather, Roger Lyte (dead now for twenty years and builder of this very house), had been the younger brother of Jonathan Lyte. Johnny himself was the merchant's grandnephew. (8.2.10, 12-13)
Whew, talk about shocking revelations—Johnny had no idea he and Merchant Lyte were so closely related. Does this sort of add insult to injury with the way the Lytes have treated Johnny so far, or does it make no difference?