"Sure enough, I never thought of her, but something might be done, she wouldn't break her heart, if she didn't starve."
"Ah, but she might do both!" exclaimed Guy. "Indeed, I cannot leave her. We must live and strive together, John. I thank you for your offer, but I can't leave my mother."
"You're a nobler fellow than the Spartan that let the wolf gnaw his vitals rather than cry out," replied the young man, "and though you won't join us, Guy, I don't doubt but you'll find good fortune somewhere."
"Thank you," said Guy, and comforted by the young man's kind offer, though he could not accept it, he walked back to the fire, where he found only the Grahams and the Harwoods.
"We have been talking about you, Guy," said Mr. Harwood. "Mr. Graham says he will give you a place in the mill if you will go with him."
"That I will, sir!" cried Guy, joyfully, his heart bounding, then falling like lead as he added, "but my mother?"
"I think she will consent," said Mr. Graham.
"Oh, sir, it was not of that I was thinking, it was of what would become of her. Oh, sir, she is poor and friendless, and I couldn't think of leaving her alone."
"I say then," said George, who had apparently been engaged in building castles in the air, or anything else rather than listening to the conversation, "I say, now that Guy isn't going with Mr. Graham, it's cold enough up there to kill his mother, make an icicle of her before Christmas, you know you said last night it was."