“But Gray is a rich man, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he has a good deal of property, but not in his own name. He persuaded your father, who was a kind-hearted and easy-natured man, to release a mortgage, promising to give him some other security the next week. But, meantime, he put his property in such a shape as to cheat all his creditors. I don’t think we shall ever get anything.”
“I am going to be an educated man, anyhow.”
“But you will have to go to work at something next fall,” said the mother.
“That will make it harder, but I mean to study a little every day. I wish I could get a chance to spend next winter in school.”
“We’ll see what can be done.”
And long after Jack went to bed that night the mother sat still by the candle with her sewing, trying to think what she could do to help her boy to get on with his studies.
Jack woke up after eleven o’clock, and saw her light still burning in the sitting-room.
“I say, mother,” he called out, “don’t you sit there worrying about me. We shall come through this all right.”
Some of Jack’s hopefulness got into the mother’s heart, and she took her light and went to bed.