'Not to you, perhaps, mother mine, but I want you to look at things as the world does. I do common work—carpenter's work, and am glad to get the chance of doing it, and to help you and Horace. Here we can only be common working people—you sewing for the shops and I working for a builder. That is all the people know, and all we want them to know, and I wish Horace could have been a carpenter too.'
'Perhaps it would have been as well,' said his mother with a sigh.
'I am sure it would. We agreed to come here and leave the whole miserable past behind.'
'It is left behind,' interrupted his mother quickly.
'Ah, yes, we have done our best; but who knows what questions may be asked, now Horace has gone to that school? Boys are often curious in their inquiries, and it is not as though——'
'Fred, Fred, we must leave these things in the hand of God, and be content to take one step at a time. I could not, in fairness to Horace, let him throw away this opportunity of getting a good education that will fit him to use the gifts which I believe God has given him.'
This conversation had taken place at dinner-time that very day, and Mrs. Howard was thinking of it as she watched Horace eat his dinner.
The boy knew that his mother's eyes were upon him, and he was the more anxious to guard his secret, and so he rattled on until his mother forgot her fears, and thought Fred was making himself anxious without the slightest shadow of cause.