'No, no, my dear,' she replied. 'Who can be better than my darling boy? It is because I have more experience of the world. Chris, my heart melted to him to-night more than it has ever done. I had a curious fancy once when he was speaking. I wished that he had been a boy like you instead of an old man, for I yearned to take him in my arms and comfort him.'
'But what person in the world,' I thought, 'would she not wish to comfort if she knew that they needed it?' And I said aloud: 'If he had had a mother like mine, it would have been different with him.' (Such words as these were the natural outcome of my affection for this dearest of women, and I did not know then, although I believe I have learnt since, how sweet they were to her.) 'But, mother, I can't think of him as you do, when I remember what he said about Jessie. And tell me--would you like me to look on things as uncle Bryan does?'
'God forbid, child!' she exclaimed warmly. 'It would take the sweetness out of your life; but I pray that you may never be tried as he has been. All that I want to impress upon you is to be tolerant to him and kind, because of his great trials and troubles. And now, my dear, I have something to tell you that you will be glad to hear. Jessie, before she went to sleep, asked me not to believe what she had said about money. "I couldn't help saying it," she said; "but I would rather be loved than have all the money there is in the world." Jessie puzzles me sometimes, my darling; but I have seen nothing in her nature that is not good.'
And with these sweet words of comfort my mother left me to my rest.
The battle between Jessie and me with respect to the Wests still continued. Jessie, standing upon her dignity, as she had declared she would, did not ask me again to call for her when she visited them, and as her visits were growing more frequent, my sufferings were proportionately intensified. I felt that I could not hold out much longer, and I was on the point of giving way and sacrificing my manliness, when the difficulty was resolved for me by the following note, which my mother placed in my hands with a smile:
'Miss West presents her compliments to Mr. Christopher Carey, and will be happy to see him at nine o'clock to-night.'
I was greatly delighted, and I congratulated myself upon my powers of endurance, thinking, naturally enough, that I had Jessie to thank for the invitation. In obedience to the summons, and feeling really very curious about the Wests--and most anxious also, I must confess, to be where Jessie was--I presented myself at the house at the hour named to the minute. There was no need to knock at the street-door, for it was open. I tapped on the wall of the dark passage, and waited for an answer. There was a great deal of laughter below, and my soft tapping was not heard, so I advanced two or three steps, and knocked more loudly.
'Who's there?' a voice cried, and the laughter ceased.
'It's me,' I answered; and I was about to announce myself more explicitly, when my words were taken up mockingly.
'Oh, it's Me, is it? Well, come downstairs, Mr. Me. Flora child, open the door. Take care! Mind your head!'