“Ah, Noll,” she said—“it is not your fault or mine that childhood must pass, with all its delight—we might as well try to hold the hand of death.... Say what you came to say——”
“Well, mother—I have found a couple of rooms in New Inn, that will just hold me; and, without Wyntwarde’s help, I ought to be able to keep myself and get into the way of winning my own bread in a very few months.”
Caroline Baddlesmere sighed:
“Yes, Noll—it is perhaps better that you should make your own life—and in your own way. It is one of the agonies of motherhood that the brood must leave the nest.”
“No, mother—it is not that.... I have to pass a room on the stairs that—in the passing—makes my heart ache—takes the man out of me.”
His lip trembled.
“Yes, Noll; I understand. I have seen you fret at many things here—as I myself have sometimes fretted at them.... I am able, too, to help you a little now—I have had a little windfall——”
Noll left the window and went to his mother. He put his hands on her shoulders:
“No, mother. I will have none of it. You ought not to be living in an attic—and I am not going to help to keep you there. It is one of the prospects that will make me work—that I should see you in your proper position. Not that, God knows, this attic has ever given me a moment’s shame; for you have made it a palace to me.”
Caroline kissed his handsome face: