“But you don’t know, Uncle Billy; you ain’t had no ’xperience.”

“No more am I like to have.  I’m a gittin’ too auld now.  I could na get me a weef an’ I wanted one.  Hoot, lad! think o’ your Uncle Billy wi’ a weef to look after; it’s no’ sensiba, no’ sensiba,” and the man took his pipe from his mouth and indulged in a hearty burst of laughter at the mental vision of himself in matrimonial chains.

“But then,” persisted Ralph, “you’d have such a nice home, you know; an’ somebody to look glad an’ smile an’ say nice things to you w’en you come home from work o’ nights.  Uncle Billy, I’d give a good deal if I had it, jes’ to have a home like other boys has, an’ mothers an’ fathers an’ sisters an’ all that.”

“Wull, lad, I’ve done the bes’ I could for ye, I’ve—­”

“Oh, Uncle Billy!” interrupted the boy, rising and laying his hand on the man’s shoulder affectionately, “you know I don’t mean that; I don’t mean but what you’ve been awful good to me; jes’ as good as any one ever could be; but it’s sumpthin’ dif’rent from that ’at I mean.  I’m thinkin’ about a home with pirty things in it, books, an’ pictures, an’ cushions, the way women fix ’em you know, an’—­an’ a mother; I want a mother very much; I think it’d be the mos’ beautiful thing in the world to have a mother.  You’ve had one, ain’t you, Uncle Billy?”

The man’s face had taken on a pleased expression when Ralph began with his expostulation, but, as the boy continued, the look changed into one of sadness.

“Yes, lad,” he said, “an’ a guid mither she waur too.  She died an’ went to heaven it’s mony a year sin’, but I still min’ the sweet way she had wi’ me.  Ye’re richt, laddie, there’s naught like a blessed mither to care for ye—­an’ ye never had the good o’ one yoursel’”—­turning and looking at the boy, with an expression of wondering pity on his face, as though that thought had occurred to him now for the first time.

“No, I never had, you know; that’s the worst of it.  If I could only remember jest the least bit about my mother, it wouldn’t seem so bad, but I can’t remember nothing, not nothing.”

“Puir lad! puir lad!  I had na thocht o’ that afoor.  But, patience, Ralph, patience; mayhap we’ll find a mither for ye yet.”

“Oh, Uncle Billy! if we could, if we only could!  Do you know, sometimes w’en I go down town, an’ walk along the street, an’ see the ladies there, I look at ev’ry one I meet, an’ w’en a real nice beautiful one comes along, I say to myself, ’I wisht that lady was my mother,’ an’ w’en some other one goes by, I say, ’I wonder if that ain’t my mother.’  It don’t do no good, you know, but it’s kind o’ comfortin’.”

“Puir lad!” repeated Billy, putting his arm around the boy and drawing him up closer to his chair, “Puir lad!”