“I cannot tell, but I suppose not. It's not likely Mark would speak of it.”
“How, then, do they regard your abstaining from calling there?”
“As a caprice, I suppose. They always thought me a wayward, uncertain sort of fellow. It's a habit your well-off people have, to look on their poorer friends as queer and odd and eccentric,—eh, Dolly?”
“There's some truth in the remark, Tony,” said she, smiling; “but I scarcely expected to hear you come out as a moralist.”
“That's because, like the rest of the world, you don't estimate me at my true value. I have a great vein of reflection or reflectiveness—which is it, Dolly? but it 's the deepest of the two—in me, if people only knew it.”
“You have a great vein of kind-heartedness, and you are a good son to a good mother,” said she, as a pink blush tinged her cheek, “and I like that better.”
It was plain that the praise had touched him, and deeply too, for he drew his hand across his eyes, and his lip trembled as he said, “It was just about that dear mother I wanted to speak to you, Dolly. You know I'm going away?”
“My father told me,” said she, with a nod of her head.
“And though, of course, I may manage a short leave now and then to come over and see her, she 'll be greatly alone. Now, Dolly, you know how she loves you,—how happy she always is when you come over to us. Will you promise me that you'll often do so? You used to think nothing of the walk long ago, and when you get strong and hearty again, you 'll not think more of it. It would be such a comfort to me, when I am far away, to feel that you were sitting beside her,—reading to her, perhaps, or settling those flowers she's so fond of. Ah, Dolly, I'll have that window that looks out on the white rocks in my mind, and you sitting at it, many and many a day, when I 'll be hundreds of miles off.”
“I love your mother dearly, Tony; she has been like a mother to myself for many a year, and it would be a great happiness to me to be with her; but don't forget, Tony,”—and she tried to smile as she spoke,—“don't forget that I'll have to go seek my fortune also.”