“What, at forty?” coolly inquired Uncle Billy, getting up and walking about, and fanning himself, and sitting down again.
But Mr. Sutherland was much too deeply interested in his mother’s fate to keep silence. He returned, and resumed his seat, and inquired—
“Has my mother’s marriage turned out happy?”
“Don’t know—can’t say, I’m sure!”
“You have not told me yet why she sold her home.”
“Dr. Wells tempted her to do it for his sake. This was the way of it: Lord bless your soul, he was too old and cunning to stop courting her after the honeymoon, or at least until he had got his hands on the property; on the contrary, they sat on the bench of the piazza against the parlour window blinds, and courted more than ever! And I laid on the lounge under the same window in the parlour, and listened more than ever. And then he cooed to her, and called her ‘My boon,’ ‘My blessing,’ and ‘My bride;’ and told her what a noble woman she was—how full of sensibility, benevolence, and disinterestedness—how full of honour, truth, and courage.”
“Well, sir, it was truth! I can easily understand how much truth should have burst impulsively from the lips of any one intimately associated with my dear mother!” exclaimed Mark, impatiently.
Uncle Billy shut his eyes, and bobbed up his chin contemptuously, and then resumed:
“Truth, was it? Well, you shall hear the rest of the truth. By-and-by he began to take the tone of a wise, affectionate guide and husband—which I have always noticed is very charming to good women, especially when it is mixed up with a little appreciative admiration—and he told her again what a high-principled, noble woman she was, and how she had only to get rid of one foible—one little weakness—and she would be a glorious woman—a perfect woman! And she pressed to know what it was, and she was willing to get rid of any fault he disapproved. ‘Oh,’ he told her, ‘it was a want of trustfulness—a want of that confiding spirit so beautiful in woman—it was no fault; only but for that one small foible she would be such a glorious woman!’ Well, Mark, to convince him that she could exercise a confiding spirit, and so become ‘a glorious woman’ all out, she gives him the full possession and perfect control of all her property, real and personal; and the upshot of it all is, that Dr. Wells has sold Silentshades, and they have emigrated to Texas!”
“Was my mother willing to go?”