“Why then, please God, you will do something better,” said I; “I hope so sincerely—it will give me the greatest pleasure—but you don’t make any progress by talking of it; that is our woman’s province. Do, Maurice, do! don’t say!”
The young man flashed with an angry and abashed color. “Thank you, I will, if it were to carry a hod. I have not forgotten,” he said, with a little bitter meaning, “that I am a widow’s son.”
“A widow’s son should be the prince of sons,” said I. “You make me preach, you young people, though it is not my vocation. Carry a hod then, if you will, like a gentleman and a Christian, and I, for one, will bid you God speed.”
Maurice put down his book, and came forward to me, holding out his hand. I suspect he liked me, though he had no great reason, and I confess, now-a-days, that I liked him. He held out his hand to say good-bye, and in saying good-bye opened his heart.
“Mrs. Crofton, you preach very well, considering that it is not your vocation; but I begin to think I am coming to that big preacher, Life, whom you once told me of. He is not a college don. Do you know,” said Maurice, with a frank, confused laugh, and rising color, “I’m in love?”
“I suspected as much,” said I. “Is all well?”
“All was ill, what with my own folly, and what with that spiteful little witch at the Rectory,” said Maurice; “but it’s coming right again. If I were to die to-morrow—little as I deserve them—I believe I should have these woman’s tears.”
“My dear boy, be thankful, and go home and live!” said I, with the water in my eyes. I was half inclined to kiss, and bless, and cry over him in the foolishness of my heart.
“I will,” said Maurice, in the fulness and effusion of his; and he kissed my hand with a congenial impulse, and went away abruptly, moved beyond speaking. He left me more profoundly and pleasantly touched than I had been for a long time. Perhaps I thought, with natural vanity, that I had a little—just a little—share in it. Dire must be the disappointment, and heavy the calamity, which should shrivel up Maurice Harley now into a college don.