“But are you going to live your life alone, Steve, dear,” she asked after a moment wistfully, “with no sweet home ties?”
“I do not know, little mother,” he said gravely. His mind went instantly to the old cabin home and little Steve, but he couldn’t tell even her of the family life there now,––nor yet of the mystic vision which had intruded upon his brooding thought.
His sudden smile flashed over the seriousness of his face as he replied at last, “I have been too busy and too poor to think about it so far.”
She did not smile in return, but catching both his hands in hers she looked up at him with motherly insistence, and asked:
“Have you never loved any dear girl? Is there no sweet face that sometimes steals into the little home which nestles always in every true man’s innermost heart?”
Her strong mother-love had surely lent her a mystic’s insight and compelling power!
Instantly into the dim outline of the vision of his brooding thought which he had hitherto constantly 157 thrust aside, came with a distinctness that startled him, a childish face framed in yellow curls above a little white pinafore!
He caught his breath with the vividness of it, then pulled himself together and looking down into the dear eyes of the woman who had been more than second mother to him, and who thereby had won the right to question him, he said with a curiously puzzled look:
“Why, I do not know,––perhaps so,”––then, as she still looked intently at him, “you have startled me. I have become such a stupid grind, I guess I need waking up. I will commune with myself, as I have never done before, and let you know what I discover,” he ended more lightly.
She knew that a revelation had come to him in that moment and was content without further questioning. With a last gentle, loving pressure for his hands she released them and they walked out together to join Nita.