"Yes," murmured Andy. "I am nearly seventeen now. Seventeen years are long—sometimes. But, of course, you were very young."
"And I had no one to guide me, Andy. I was alone. I have always been alone, and it has been hard." A sob rose to the trembling lips. Andy looked at his mother, and, oddly enough through all the bewilderment, thought that she had a beauty he had never noticed before.
"You were handsome, too," he whispered. Janie started.
"Yes," she replied. "I suppose I was, then. Your voice is like his. It always was, Andy. That was one reason that at times I could not bear it. Oh, Andy! it is no easy matter to be a lonely woman!" The cry smote the listener, and his growing manhood reached out to her.
"Mother, you are not alone. You have me. I will come back to you, stand by you, and we will see what is best to do. I must go on my errand, and I think you ought to go to—to father!" The word nearly choked him.
"But suppose anything should happen to you?" Janie clung to the hand of this new, strange, but well-loved son, "whatever shall I do?
"I think I shall come back to you. I think I am needed, and it seems clear to me that I shall come back." Andy smiled into the troubled face, and tried to rouse himself into action.
"If you should fall into the hands of the British," whispered Janie, "tell them you are the son of Lieutenant Theodore Martin; it may help you, son."
"Your name is my name!" Andy proudly broke in. "I never shall seek favor through any other. If they take me, they take Andy McNeal, and if I come back I shall come bearing that name, until my mother bids me take another!"
Janie bowed her head. It had been her first, only weak attitude toward her country.