CHAPTER XV.
“I have been thinking of bringing up my mother to live with me,” said the Mr Lithgow in whom Mrs Laurie and her daughter were beginning to forget the humble Johnnie: “I see no reason why she should live in poverty in Kirklands, while I am comfortable here.”
His face flushed slightly as he concluded, and he began to drum with his fingers in mere shyness and embarrassment upon Miss Annie Laurie’s work-table. Randall, a little distance from him, was turning over with infinite scorn Miss Annie’s picture-books. The two young men had grown familiar in the house, though it was not yet a month since they entered it first.
“And I think you are very right,” said Mrs Laurie cordially, “though whether Mrs Lithgow might be pleased with a town life, or whether—”
She paused; it was not very easy to say “whether your mother would be a suitable housekeeper for you.” Mrs Laurie could not do violence either to her own feelings or his by suggesting such a doubt.
“I think it would be a great risk,” said Randall, “and if you consulted me, would certainly warn you against it. Your mother knows nothing of London—she would not like it; besides, a young man seeking his fortune should be alone.”
“Cold doctrine,” said Lithgow, smiling, “and to come from you.”
His eye fell unconsciously upon Menie; then as he met a quick upward glance from her, he stammered, blushed, and stopped short—for Johnnie Lithgow was as shy and sensitive as a girl, and had all the reverence of youthful genius for womanhood and love. With compunction, and an idea that he had been jesting profanely, Lithgow hurriedly began again.
“I am so vain as to think I myself would be London to my mother—old ground long known and well explored. If she would not like the change, of course—but I fancy she might.”
“I advise you against it, Lithgow,” said Randall; “in your case I should never entertain such an idea. There is my father—no one can have a greater respect for him than I—but to bring him to live with me—to bring him to London—I should think it the merest folly, injurious to us both.”