"You?" she began. "You that's planted firm on the ladder and right-hand to the Judge already, and him getting older every day, and Theodore Burr just kept on in the office because Everard's after Burr's wife. So he is, and the town knows it, and Theodore'll wake up to it soon. A fine partner Theodore is for the Judge, poor boy, but he's a good boy, too, though none too strong in the head; Lil Burr is a good girl, too, and she'd make a good wife to Theodore if she could be left to herself. She'd make it up with Theodore, as many a girl has done that's got more for her husband to forgive than Lil.
"Poor Lil. Her head's high above me now, but the time was she cried on my shoulder; crying for Charlie, she was, before ever Charlie took up with Maggie and Lil with Theodore; when the four of them were all young together, and the one as good as the other. Young they were, and the hearts of them young—wild, doubtful hearts. Many's the time Lil would come to me then, here in this same kitchen, and go down on her knees, her that was tall and a fine figure of a girl, and cling onto me, crying her heart out; crying she was for all the world like—like——"
Mrs. Donovan checked herself abruptly with shrewd eyes upon her son.
"Like young things do cry, and tell you their troubles in tears, not words." She ended somewhat vaguely, and came quickly back to her main subject again.
"You that can walk into the big rally next week and sit with the men that count, and whisper and talk to them, and hold your head high, with nothing against you, and will be sitting up on the platform soon, with the best of them, and be mayor yet, like Everard's going to be, or governor, maybe—you to compare yourself with Charlie, if he is my half-sister's own son. He's a drunken good-for-nothing. He's got no spirit in him if he'll stay here at all, where he's ashamed himself and make a show of himself. How is it he's able to stay? Where does he get the money he spends? This town don't pay it to him. Who does?"
"What put that into your head?" her son asked sharply.
"There's talk enough of it, and there'll be more. The whole town will be asking soon."
"The town asks a lot of questions it don't dare hear the answers to," said Neil softly, unregarded. His mother returned to her grievance:
"You to be likening yourself to Charlie."
"When Charlie was twenty-five," Neil began slowly, "he was where I will be then, or better. The Judge was a friend to him, too, and the Judge was a better friend then to have. Charlie was setting up for himself, well thought of. My own father trusted him. When I was a boy and not grown, Charlie was a son to him, and more. He was a better spoken lawyer than I'll ever make, quick and smooth with his tongue, and he was fine appearing, and put up a better front than I do. I've gone part of the road that Charlie went. What will stop me from going the whole road? What's beat Charlie is strong enough to beat me.... Don't look so scared, mother. I don't want to scare you. I only want you to be fair to Charlie."