"Don't feel bad, ma: I'm going to take care of you."
For his mother's grief called forth his manliness.
She meant to be cheerful; but Horace knew she did not look or seem like herself: he thought he ought to try to make her happy.
Whenever he asked for money, as he too often did, she told him that now his father was gone, there was no one to earn anything, and it was best to be rather prudent. He wanted a drum; but she thought he must wait a while for that.
They were far from being poor, and Mrs. Clifford had no idea of deceiving her little son. Yet he was deceived, for he supposed that his mother's pretty little porte-monnaie held all the bank-bills and all the silver she had in the world.
"O, Grace!" said Horace, coming down stairs with a very grave face, "I wish I was grown a man: then I'd earn money like sixty."
Grace stopped her singing long enough to ask what he meant to do, and then continued in a high key,—
"Where, O where are the Hebrew children?"
"O, I'm going as a soldier," replied Horace: "I thought everybody knew that! The colonels make a heap of money!"
"But, Horace, you might get shot—just think!"