Adam would have liked to say something cheerful if he could, but he could not at the moment think of anything to say, because his mother's words were true. Before an answer came from him she had given up her last breath, and the young man, always lonely enough, felt a little more lonely than before.
It was some comfort to think of those last words of his mother, and to know that the grave, unsympathetic woman had in her heart recognised his devotion.
She had owned, after her fashion, that if she had done her part towards Adam as faithfully as he had performed his to herself, both their lives might have been happier. This was a crumb of comfort to feed upon, and threw just a ray of light across that death-bed, not for the departing soul, but for the watcher beside it; and Adam rejoiced that he had "stuck by mother to the last."
"Poor soul! I reckon she couldn't help feeling so down-hearted and dull. Dulness is catching, and I've got a good deal into mother's ways with being so much along with her. However, I'm glad I haven't got to look back and think that I left her to shift for herself, as Ned and Tom did."
Adam, you see, had done his duty according to his light, and this thought was the best comforter he had, as he sat by his solitary hearth that night, thinking of the past, and wondering how he should shape his future. Often and often had he rebelled in spirit against the monotony of his work and its hopeless character. He asked himself—Would it be possible for him to make a fresh start, now he had only himself to work for?
[CHAPTER II.]
"FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE."
ADAM LIVESEY was not fated to be long without a companion. His mother's next door neighbour was a widow, like herself. Her only unmarried daughter had just given up her place to come and live with her, the one who had been at home having lately become the wife of a mechanic.
Mrs. Livesey, as we know, had not been much given to neighbouring, but, being "fond of peace and quietness," was certain to quarrel with nobody. She was silent enough, but Mrs. Allison, being a great talker, had liked her all the better on that account. So she told how Annie was going to be married, and Maggie, her youngest, coming to live with her at home, because she could not be left by herself.
"And lucky for me," she said, "my husband had a trifle of money that came to him only just before he died, or I am afraid he would have run through it; and he left it to me for life, and then it will go, share and share alike, amongst the four girls. Only a trifle when it comes to be divided, but enough to keep a little house over my head while I live, and so as I can have one daughter with me. Maggie is the last. Eh, dear! I hope nobody will want her!"