“I was not speaking of quarrelling,” she returned, in a graver voice; “but you do not seek her out as you used. Before, when you arrived, you always disappointed me by shutting yourself up in the school-room, where no one could get at you; and now Grace tells me she has not had a word with you these four days.”
“Has Grace complained of me, then?”
“You know Grace never complains of you. It was not said in any fault-finding way. We agreed you were not quite yourself, or in your usual spirits; and I asked her the reason. Tell me, my son, is there anything troubling you?” Archie sat silent. Mrs. Drummond was so rarely demonstrative to her children that even this well-beloved son had never heard before such chords of tenderness in his mother’s voice; and, looking up, he saw that her keen gray eyes were softened and moist with tears. “You are not quite yourself, Archie,—not quite happy?” she went on.
Then he took counsel with himself; and after a moment he answered her:
“No, mother; you are right. I am not—not quite myself nor quite happy; but I mean to be both presently.” And then he looked up in her face pleadingly, with an expression of entreaty that went to her heart, and continued: “But my own mother will not pain me by unnecessary questions that I could not answer.” And then she knew that his will was that she should be silent.
“Very well,” she returned, with a sigh. “But you will tell me one thing, will you not, my dear! Is it—is it quite hopeless?” her mother’s instinct, like that of the Eastern Caliph, immediately suggesting a woman in the case.
“Quite—quite hopeless!—as dead as this!” bringing down his hand on a large defunct moth. “Talking will not bring to life, or help a man, to carry a real burden.”
Then, as she kissed him, she knew that his pain had been very great, but that he meant to bear it with all the strength he could bring.
Grace went up to prepare for her walk that evening with no very pleasurable anticipations. Her mother had given her Archie’s message in due form, as she sat somewhat sadly by the school-room window, mending a frock Dottie had just torn.
“Archie wants you to go out with him, Grace,” Mrs. Drummond said, as she came in, in her usual active bustling way. “The grass never grew under her feet,” as she was often pleased to observe. “Loitering and lagging make young bones grow prematurely old,” she would say, coining a new proverb for the benefit of lazy Susie. “Never measure your footsteps when you are about other people’s business,” she would say to Laura, 273 who hated to be hunted up from her employment for any errand. “He thinks of going over to Blackthorn Farm, as it is so fine; and the walk will do you good,” continued Mrs. Drummond, with a keen look at her daughter’s pale face. “Give me Dottie’s frock: that little monkey is always getting into mischief.” But Grace yielded her task reluctantly.