"As I truly intend to, mamma. But are not most of the ignorant and vicious those who have come in from foreign lands?"
"A very great many—a very large majority no doubt are," she answered; "and yet there are many ignorant and vicious ones who are native born; not a few of them being the children of natives. Some of the Tories of revolutionary times were even worse than savages. 'The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,' applies to the whole of Adam's fallen race, and each one of us needs to pray, 'Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.'"
"I feel that I do, mother, but you have always seemed to me so perfect that it is difficult to realize that it can be so with you," said the lad, turning upon her eyes filled with ardent love and admiration.
"That is doubtless because your eyes are blinded by filial love, my dear boy," she returned, with her sweet and loving smile.
They presently reached the house, and Walter set about his packing, under his mother's supervision, which made the work seem but a pleasant pastime. It did not take long and, seated together in one of the porches, they had time before the return of the others for a confidential chat, such as Walter dearly loved to have with his mother.
Then came the call to supper, and the meal was scarcely over when the hack was announced as at the door; there were hasty leave-takings, his mother's the last for Walter. She strained him to her heart with some whispered words of love, while he embraced her with ardent affection, and in a moment more he was in the hack, with Mr. Keith by his side, and they were driving rapidly away toward the city to take the night train for New York.
CHAPTER XX.
The shades of evening had begun to fall. A cool breeze made the brightly lighted parlor more attractive than the porches, and there the older ones gathered, while the mothers saw their weary little ones to bed. The gentlemen had their newspapers, Mrs. Dinsmore and Mrs. Travilla their fancy work, while the four young girls, in a group by themselves, chatted and laughed together, discussing the sights and scenes through which they had passed that day, and the bits of history connected with them.