“Too true,” quoth Squills. “What a phrenological lecturer you would have made!”
“Go then, my love,” said my father, “and lay no blame but on this melancholy cavity of mine, where cautiousness—is not! Go, and let Sisty have some supper; for Squills says that he has a fine development of the mathematical organs, and we want his help. We are hard at work on figures, Pisistratus.”
My mother looked broken-hearted, and, obeying submissively, stole to the door without a word. But as she reached the threshold she turned round and beckoned to me to follow her.
I whispered my father and went out. My mother was standing in the hall, and I saw by the lamp that she had dried her tears, and that her face, though very sad, was more composed.
“Sisty,” she said, in a low voice which struggled to be firm, “promise me that you will tell me all,—the worst, Sisty. They keep it from me, and that is my hardest punishment; for when I don’t know all that he—that Austin suffers, it seems to me as if I had lost his heart. Oh, Sisty, my child, my child, don’t fear me! I shall be happy whatever befalls us, if I once get back my privilege,—my privilege, Sisty, to comfort, to share! Do you understand me?”
“Yes indeed, my mother! And with your good sense and clear woman’s wit, if you will but feel how much we want them, you will be the best counsellor we could have. So never fear; you and I will have no secrets.”
My mother kissed me, and went away with a less heavy step.
As I re-entered, my father came across the room and embraced me.
“My son,” he said in a faltering voice, “if your modest prospects in life are ruined—”
“Father, father, can you think of me at such a moment? Me! Is it possible to ruin the young and strong and healthy! Ruin me, with these thews and sinews; ruin me, with the education you have given me,—thews and sinews of the mind! Oh, no! there, Fortune is harmless! And you forget, sir,—the saffron bag!”