“Oh, yes!” says Tom. “Perhaps, as she hasn’t seen you since before I was born, I ought to have said who she was. Her name was Spencer.”
The Professor turns quickly. Tom proceeds with entire unconsciousness:—
“She often speaks of you, sir, and always in a way that has made me want to know you.”
“I am very glad, Tom,” said the Professor. “You must excuse my calling you by your first name; but then you are the son of—your mother.”
Any one but Tom, who never noticed anything, would have seen here that the Professor’s manner was peculiar. But Tom is always so brightly ignorant of what is before his eyes, that the Professor recovers his self-possession, and says calmly:—
“And your mother is well, I hope?”
“Oh, yes!” said Tom; “very well, but a little sad at my leaving home. She is very fond of me, sir.”
“Strange fact!” said the Professor, dryly. “And I see that you are equally fond of her. I am not given to moralizing; but I think that college life will not decay you, if you don’t forget how much you are to your mother,—how unhappy you can make her.”
“Forget her?” said Tom; “not I! When I am at home, I make love to her all the time.”