“Mother,” said John—and though he tried to be gentle his voice was stern—“have I reproached you? There is nothing to forgive! I am sure you only did what you felt you were obliged to do, and that you did it for the best. I am young and strong. I shall win back every yard of my father’s estate in a few years, if work and thought can do it. But the trouble and the difficulty are mine, not yours, and they will not hurt me.”
“John, why should you keep them when you can blow them away with a word of love to Tom?”
“Simply because I cannot speak the word. What do you take me for?”
“John—I must say it, even if you are angry with me—it will break my heart if that which I hear is true.”
“What have you heard?”
“That you are courting Margaret Miller. Who is she that she dare look at you?” Mrs. Hunter laughed unpleasantly. “Why, nobody knows what she is, nor where she came from; she may be the scum of the earth for all——”
“Mother,” John’s voice trembled, “you are my mother, and I love you, and I will not be angry with you, but please never speak in that way again of Miss Miller.” He paused a minute to steady his voice, and for debate with himself as to whether or not he should confide in his mother, and decided to do so. “There ought to be no secrets between us two, little mother, for whom have we but each other? And so I will at once tell you the truth. I have chosen Miss Miller to be my wife, and have asked her to accept my love. I have plenty to think of besides marrying for some years to come, but if I ever do marry, Margaret Miller will be my bride.”
Mrs. Hunter’s eyes blazed with fury; but her son would not let her speak. He had seen his mother in a passion before, and for her own sake as much as his he resolved that he would not listen to her torrents of angry words.
“Wait a moment, mother. All that I can be to you as a son I will be; but I am a man now, and I must be allowed to choose my own friends and, above all, my own wife.”
He left her after these words, and perhaps his heart was as heavy as his mother’s. He was sorry to vex her; but he was himself vexed, too. It was too bad to bring his cousin Tom into this discussion, and to suggest that most absurd idea! There could not be a particle of truth in the suggestion that Tom cared for him, except as a cousin; of that he was absolutely certain. It was a pain, that was not without shame, that her father held a mortgage on his land, but he would never redeem it in that fashion. He knew that his uncle had obliged his mother to arrange with him instead of a stranger, and he knew, too, that she had almost exceeded the terms of his father’s will in what she did. It was well that he was in the hands of an honourable relative; but the thing was a trouble to him, for the thought of a debt was hard to bear. His case was an exceedingly common one. How to be just as well as generous is a problem given to many to solve.