Besides, he was busy, and had no time just then for nonsense of any kind. It was not quite so easy to manage the exchange he wanted as he had believed it would be; and Mrs. Renton, though she interfered so little in her son’s proceedings, did what she could to put a stop to this movement on his part. ‘I never even hear from Ben,’ she said, pathetically. ‘I do not know where he has gone or what has become of him; and Laurie, though he writes punctually, has not been to see me for ever so long; what shall I do if you go too?’
‘But, mother, I must go,’ Frank would say; ‘I can’t get on where I am now. No, mamma,—thanks; I ought not to take it. What my father meant was that we should go and seek our fortune. And beside, if Ben and Laurie don’t have money from you, I ought not to have it. That is as clear as daylight.’
‘If Ben and Laurie were here they would have everything I could give them,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘they ought to know that; but you are the only one of my boys that stands by me, Frank. Put it in your pocket, dear, and never mind. Ah! if your poor dear papa could but have seen the harm it has done!’ and she cried, poor soul, longing for her other children, though she had not energy enough to seek them out; ‘but we must not blame your dear papa,’ she added, hastily, drying her eyes.
‘No,’ said Frank. ‘But it has done harm. Laurie was not like himself last time I saw him. He has got among a queer sort of people,—artists and that sort of thing. I don’t feel quite easy about him, to tell the truth.’
‘Among low people, do you mean?’ cried his mother, with the tears ready to flow from her eyes.
‘N—no; not exactly low people,’ said Frank; and somehow a hot flush of colour covered his own face. All at once that picture rose up before him, and Alice out of the doorway looked at him with reproachful eyes. ‘I heard that favourite thing of yours so beautifully played the other day,’ he added, hastily; and then he hummed a few bars to identify the melody; ‘charmingly played. I don’t think any one could have done it better.’
‘Mary plays it very nicely,’ said his mother, who was easily led away from one subject to another.
‘Oh, Mary!’ said Frank. ‘Yes, she does very well, of course; but this was almost genius, you know. She played it as if she were making it up herself. Quite a young girl, fifteen or so,’ Frank went on; ‘and sitting in a dark room, so she must have played from memory. I wish you could have heard her.’
‘Was it any one I know?’ said Mrs. Renton.
‘It was somebody Laurie knows,’ said Frank shortly. ‘I suppose he’ll stick there for ever and ever, and never do anything. I wish he were not such a lazy beggar. In one way he is the cleverest of us all.’