"Yes. How could I sleep? How could I rest? There was a worse storm than ever last night at supper-time, and—and—Jack ran away out of the house, and has never come back."
"The young rascal!" George exclaimed. "I'd like to thrash him!"
"Oh, don't say so! Don't say so! If ever a boy is scourged by a tongue, Jack is. I mean to leave this house; I can't—I can't bear it any longer."
"Well," George said, his eyes shining with a bright light—the light of hope—"well, there's a home ready for you, you know that. The sooner you come, the better."
"You know I can't do it. Why do you ask me? I wonder you should ask me."
"I see no wonder in it," was the answer. "You've watched and waited for eleven years; sure that's long enough! He will never come back."
"Yes," she said sadly; "yes. I have waited and watched, as you say. It is the business of my life. I shall watch and wait to the end."
George Paterson gave an impatient gesture, and settled the workman's basket on his broad shoulders, as if he were going to walk on. But after a pace or two he seemed to change his mind, and stopping, he said—
"But what about Jack? How did it happen?"
"He offended her yesterday. He brought dirty boots into the parlour; and he blew a tune on the little cornet you gave him, when she told him to be quiet. He upset a jug of water on the table, and he made a face at her, and he called her 'an old cat.' He had no business to call her names."