“You know I never can make out Mr. Raymond’s writing,” said Mrs. Gordon, “so pray read it yourself.”
But this Will could not do, and he insisted until his mother took the letter and began to read, while he forgot to darn, so intent was he upon watching the expression of her face. At first it turned very red, then white, and then the great drops of perspiration stood upon her forehead, for she felt as every mother does, when they first learn that their only boy is about yielding to another the love they have claimed so long.
“Have you spoken to Marian?” she asked, giving him back the letter, but not resuming her work.
“No,” was his answer: and she continued, “Then I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” he asked, in some alarm; and with a tremor in her voice, his mother replied, “I’ve nothing against Marian, but we are so happy together, and it would kill me to have you go away.”
“Is that all?” and in his delight Will ran the darning-needle under his thumb nail; “I needn’t go away. I can bring her home, and you won’t have to mend my socks any more. Those back chambers are seldom used, and—”
“Back chambers!” exclaimed Mrs. Gordon. “I guess if you bring a wife here, you’ll occupy the parlor chamber and bedroom. I was going to re-paper them in the Spring, and I think on the whole I’ll refurnish it entirely, for you might sometimes have calls up there.”
“You charming woman,” cried Will, kissing his mother, whose consent he understood to be fully won.
He knew she had always admired Miss Grey, but he expected more opposition than this, and in his delight he would have gone to see Marian at once, were it not that he had heard she was absent that evening. For an hour or more he talked with his mother of his plans, and when at last Ellen came in, she, too, was let into the secret. Of course, she rebelled at first, for her family pride was very strong, and the peddler Ben, was a serious objection. But when she saw how earnest her brother was, and that her mother, too, had espoused his cause, she condescended to say:
“I suppose you might do worse, though folks will wonder at your taste in marrying Mary’s governess.”