“Recognise it?” exclaimed Mrs Milton, in a blaze of sudden hope. “Ay, that I would; didn’t I teach him every letter myself? Didn’t he insist on making his down-strokes crooked? and wasn’t my heart almost broken over his square O’s?”
While the poor mother was speaking, the unfinished letter was laid before her, and the handwriting at once recognised.
“That’s his! Bless him! And he’s sorry. Didn’t I say he would be sorry? Didn’t I tell his father so? Darling Miles, I—”
Here the poor creature broke down, and wept at the thought of her repentant son. It was well, perhaps, that the blow was thus softened, for she almost fell on the floor when her new friend told her, in the gentlest possible manner, that Miles had that very day set sail for Egypt.
They kept her at the Institute that night, however, and consoled her much, as well as aroused her gratitude, by telling of the good men who formed part of her son’s regiment; and of the books and kind words that had been bestowed on him at parting; and by making the most they could of the good hope that the fighting in Egypt would soon be over, and that her son would ere long return to her, God willing, sound and well.
Chapter Seven.
Miles begins to discover himself—Has a few Rough Experiences—And falls into Pea-Soup, Salt-Water, and Love.
While his mother was hunting for him in Portsmouth, Miles Milton was cleaving his way through the watery highway of the world, at the rate of fifteen knots.