The clergyman found it hard to explain. "It seems that this boy is not quite like the other members of the family—not so bright, I take it," he said; "and the father particularly is a bit disappointed in him!"
"Do you mean," said Mrs. Corbett, "that they are ashamed of the poor little fellow, and are sending him out here to get rid of him? Faith, if that's the kind of heathen there is in England I don't know why they send missionaries out here to preach to us. Bad and all as we are, there is none of us that would do the like of that!"
"They will provide handsomely for him in every way, Mrs. Corbett, and leave no wish ungratified," the minister said uneasily.
Mrs. Corbett was a difficult person in some ways.
"Oh, sure, they will give him everything but love and home, and that'll be what the poor wee lad will hunger for! Money is a queer thing for sure, when it will make a mother forget the child that she brought into the world!"
"I think the mother—from what I can gather—wanted to keep the boy, but the father is a very proud man, and this lad aggravated him some way just to see him, and the mother yielded to his wishes, as a true wife should, and for the sake of peace has withdrawn her objections."
"A poor soft fool, that's all she is, to let a domineering old reprobate send her poor lad away, just because he did not like to see him around, and him his own child! And even you, Mr. Tilton, who have been out here living with civilized people for three years, have enough of the old country way in you yet to say that a true wife should consent to this to please the old tyrant! Faith, I don't blame the Suffragettes for smashing windows, and if I wasn't so busy feeding hungry men, I believe I would go over and give them a hand, only I would be more careful what I was smashing and would not waste my time on innocent windows!"
"But you will take him, won't you, Mrs. Corbett? I will feel quite easy about him if you will!"
"I suppose I'll have to. I can't refuse when his own have deserted him! I would be a poor member of the Army if I did not remember Our Lord's promise to the poor children when their fathers and mothers forsake them, and I will try to carry it out as well as I can."
Stanley was soon established in the big white-washed room in Mrs. Corbett's boarding-house. He brought with him everything that any boy could ever want, and his room, which he kept spotlessly clean, with its beautiful rug, pictures, and books, was the admiration of the neighborhood.