A gleam came into his eyes. 'That is sincere,' he said, with a pleasanter smile than the last. 'Very well, then; it does satisfy me. What I want to say now is, that there must be no break. You must not remain, and let me get accustomed to you, and then leave me for a woman's reason.'
'I will not, Bryan.'
With that, the conversation ended. In the night, when my mother and I were alone in our bedroom, I said,
'Do you think uncle Bryan is a good man now, mother?'
'Is it not good of him, Chris, to give us a home?'
'Yes,' I said; but I was not quite satisfied with her answer. 'His shell is very rough, though.'
My mother laughed. I loved to hear her laugh; it was so different from uncle Bryan's. His laughter had no gladness in it.
'We shall find a sweet place here and there, Chris,' she said.
She tried to, I am sure, and she brightened the house with her pleasant ways. One night we were sitting together as usual; I was doing a sum on a slate which uncle Bryan had set for me; he was reading; my mother was mending clothes. We had been sitting quiet for a long time, when my mother commenced to sing one of her simple songs, very softly, as though she were singing to herself. In the midst of her singing she became aware that uncle Bryan was present, and with a rapid apprehensive glance at him she paused. He looked up from his book at once.
'Why do you stop, Emma?' he asked.