CHAPTER III.
“Indeed, my dear, you must take it. You certainly have caught cold; you sneezed three times together.”
“Yes, ma’am, because I would take a pinch of Uncle Roland’s snuff, just to say that I had taken a pinch out of his box,—the honor of the thing, you know.”
“Ah, my dear! what was that very clever remark you made at the same time, which so pleased your father,—something about Jews and the college?”
“Jews and—oh! pulverem Olympicum collegisse juvat, my dear mother,—which means that it is a pleasure to take a pinch out of a brave man’s snuff-box. I say, mother, put down the posset. Yes, I’ll take it; I will, indeed. Now, then, sit here,—that’s right,—and tell me all you know about this famous old Captain. Imprimis, he is older than my father?”
“To be sure!” exclaimed my mother, indignantly. “He looks twenty years older; but there is only five years’ real difference. Your father must always look young.”
“And why does Uncle Roland put that absurd French de before his name; and why were my father and he not good friends; and is he married; and has he any children?”
Scene of this conference: my own little room, new papered on purpose for my return for good,—trellis-work paper, flowers and birds, all so fresh and so new and so clean and so gay, with my books ranged in neat shelves, and a writing-table by the window; and, without the window, shines the still summer moon. The window is a little open: you scent the flowers and the new-mown hay. Past eleven; and the boy and his dear mother are all alone.
“My dear, my dear, you ask so many questions at once!”