Randall withdrew, but was quickly followed by Charlie and his friend.
"Where are you going, my lad?" asked the sailor.
"You needn't ask, Bill,—to see my best friend, my mother. It is for her sake that I welcome this fortune. She shall never want any more while I have money. We will have a nice little home, where you shall be welcome, Bill, always and all the time."
Bill pressed the hand of our young hero in his own rough palm, and there was a suspicious moisture about his eyes, but he said nothing.
XXXVII.
REUNITED AT LAST.
Mrs. Codman was sitting in a little room opening out from the breakfast-room, which had been appropriated as a sort of study by Bert and herself.
Topsy, the kitten, who had not yet attained the sobriety and demureness of old cat-hood, was running round after her tail.
"Oh, dear," sighed Bert, who was puzzling over a lesson in geography, "I can't study any to-day."