But for his prompt action she might have sunk to the floor, so weak she seemed, although he had been told she was in such good bodily health. Yes; and very pale and thin she looked, although he had been informed that her appetite was so excellent.
He stooped and kissed her, drew a chair to her side, and sat down and took her hand.
“I am so happy to be with you again, mother. And you are happy here, are you not?” he inquired.
She looked at him strangely for a moment, and then answered:
“Why, of course I am happy here, dear. Why shouldn’t I be so? I have nothing to trouble me but your long absences, and, of course, I know they are necessary, and that you are doing well at the university. It would be very selfish in me to wish to keep you home, especially as I have all the rest of them with me.”
“All the rest!” repeated Harcourt sadly, beginning now, for the first time, to realize the delusion of his mother.
“Yes, dear, they are all here. John did not go to the Naval Academy, as he wished to do, nor Peyton to West Point. The defeat of our party, and the total change of administration prevented their success. And I was not sorry. I would rather have them home, for I am growing old, I am growing very old,” slowly muttered the poor lady.
Harcourt suppressed a groan. He saw that the recent past was totally obliterated from his mother’s mind, which had gone back to the time before the Civil War, and she talked of John and Peyton, both of whom had fallen in battle, and whose bodies filled unknown graves.
“I am so pleased to have you here, my dear; but I do not understand it. This is not vacation time. How is it that you are able to leave the university in the middle of the term?”
While Harcourt was hesitating how to answer this question she put on her spectacles, took a good, deep look at him, and then saved him the trouble of a reply by saying: