A Chapter of Adventures

by G. A. Henty

"Well, think this over. It seems to me and to Mr. Godstone to be by far the best plan for all parties. And it will be much the most pleasant to us; as I should then hope to see you often, and to see for myself how your child is getting on. Do not give an answer to me now: it will be another week before my husband can be moved up to town, so there will be plenty of time for you to look at it in all lights before you decide. I know that it will be a sacrifice for you to leave Leigh where you have so many relations and friends; but I am sure this will not weigh with you as against the interest of your children."

So saying the ship-owner's wife shook hands with Mrs. Robson and at once went out. Half-way down the street she met Jack.

"It is all settled, Jack," she said, in answer to his look. "Your mother has agreed to your going."

"Has she?" Jack exclaimed in delight. "Hurrah! Thank you so much, ma'am," and throwing his cap in the air he caught it again, and then started home at a run at the top of his speed. Bursting in at the door he was sobered instantly by seeing his mother in tears.

"My dear mother!" he exclaimed, "don't cry over it. Of course I should like to go to sea and always wanted it, still I would not think of doing it if it makes you unhappy. Although you did tell Mrs. Godstone that you consented, I will go off at once and tell them that I have changed my mind, and that on thinking it over I have concluded to stay here with you."

"No, no, Jack," his mother said, as he turned to carry his offer into effect. "It is not that at all. I am quite willing that you should go, my boy. Of course I shall miss you; but other women have to see their sons go to sea or abroad, and I shall be no worse off than they are. I am very pleased, indeed, that you should have the life you wish for open to you. There is now a far better prospect of your getting on and doing well than there was when your father consented that you should go to sea some day. I am not crying about that at all, Jack, but from pleasure, with perhaps a little pain in it, at the kind offer Mrs. Godstone has just made me with regard to Lily and myself."

And she then told Jack the proposal that had been made to her.

"And are you going to accept it, mother? Oh, I do hope you will. I have never cared for myself, but I have sometimes been so sorry when I thought that Lily would grow up so different from what my father would have wished her."

"And so have I, Jack. Boys are boys, and can to some extent make themselves what they like. Poor men's sons can, if they are steady and industrious and clever, rise in the world; rich men's sons can come down to beggary. But it is different with girls. And it always has been a great grief to me too when I have thought of Lily's future. For myself, I do not like taking the money—that you can well believe,—but for her sake I should be very wrong to refuse the offer. I shall be sorry to leave Leigh; and yet, you see, after living for thirteen years such a different life, I do not see things as I did when I was a girl, and have blamed myself often because I have felt the difference. But I have felt it, and therefore the idea of going back to Dulwich again is not so painful to me as I think it ought to be."

"Of course it is quite natural, mother," Jack said; "and it would be curious if you did not feel so after living there so long and mixing with people so different in their ways. And won't it be splendid having a nice little home like that to come back to, and Lily being educated as a lady, and I making my way on. It will be grand, mother!"