“Say rather the follower,” said Randall; “and well for those who have the happy knack of following wisely—chiming in, before itself is fully aware of it, with the humour of the time.”
Menie Laurie, who was close at hand, and heard all this, ventured a whisper, while Randall’s companion had for the moment turned away.
“Your words sound as if you slighted him, Randall, and you too call yourself a literary man.”
“Good Johnnie Lithgow, I like him extremely,” said Randall, with the half-scornful smile which puzzled Menie; “but he is only a literary workman after all. He does his literature as his day’s labour—he will tell you so himself—a mere craft for daily bread.”
And just then Lithgow turned round, with his radiant face—he who had no fame to lose, and did an honest day’s work in every day, not thinking that the nature of his craft excused him from the natural amount of toil—and again Menie felt a little pang at her heart, as she thought of Randall’s jealous guardianship of Randall’s youthful fame.
CHAPTER XV.
“I have been thinking of bringing up my mother to live with me,” said the Mr Lithgow in whom Mrs Laurie and her daughter were beginning to forget the humble Johnnie: “I see no reason why she should live in poverty in Kirklands, while I am comfortable here.”
His face flushed slightly as he concluded, and he began to drum with his fingers in mere shyness and embarrassment upon Miss Annie Laurie’s work-table. Randall, a little distance from him, was turning over with infinite scorn Miss Annie’s picture-books. The two young men had grown familiar in the house, though it was not yet a month since they entered it first.
“And I think you are very right,” said Mrs Laurie cordially, “though whether Mrs Lithgow might be pleased with a town-life, or whether—”
She paused: it was not very easy to say “whether your mother would be a suitable housekeeper for you.” Mrs Laurie could not do violence either to her own feelings or his by suggesting such a doubt.