“My dear Mark,” said the former, “did I understand you to say that Mrs. Sutherland was your own mother?”
“Undoubtedly my own mother! What a question! Besides, my friend, pardon me! but really, where are your eyes? We are said to be the image of each other!”
“Well, now, although both of you are dark, with high complexions, I cannot see the likeness, to save my soul,” said Lauderdale, mischievously; then adding, “she is very handsome.”
“Is she not!” echoed Sutherland, with enthusiasm, and accompanying Lauderdale up stairs—“the handsomest woman in the world? oh, except one. You should see India. And, more than that, she—my mother, I mean—is the most excellent, except—none.”
“I cannot think that she was so handsome in early youth as she is now.”
“Oh, I suppose her youth to her maturity was as the budding to the blooming rose—that is all. Here is your room. Make Flame supply you with anything you may need, that is not at hand; and for your life—nay, more, for your good looks, worth more than life—do not open the wire shutters; if you do, you may look in the glass in ten minutes after, and fancy yourself ill with the erysipelas. Au revoir! When you are ready, come down.”
Mark Sutherland left the room, and instead of seeking his own chamber, to refresh himself with a change of raiment, he hastened down the stairs, entered the parlour, and once more clasped his mother fervently in his arms, and—
“My dearest mother,” and “My dearest Mark,” were the words exchanged between them. “But, oh, Mark! how haggard you look, my love! You have been ill, and never let me know it.”
“No, upon my honour, mother!”
“Ah, but you are so pale and thin, and your expression is so anxious—what is it? What can it be, Mark?”