His mother looked at him to explain his words, but he turned his head away and was silent.
“Tell me something about home, mother. How are the Stewarts? Where is Dolly?”
“They are well, and Dolly is here; and a dear good girl she is. Ah, Tony! if you knew all the comfort she has been to me in your absence,—coming here through sleet and snow and storm, and nursing me like a daughter.”
“I liked her better till I learned how she had treated that good-hearted fellow Sam M'Gruder. Do you know how she has behaved to him?”
“I know it all. I read her letters, every one of them.”
“And can you mean that you defend her conduct?'”
“I mean that if she were to marry a man she did not love, and were dishonest enough not to tell him so, I 'd not attempt to defend her. There's what I mean, Tony.”
“Why promise him, then,—why accept him?”
“She never did.”
“Ah!” exclaimed he, holding up both his hands.