‘Now, Dandy, sit on the edge of the bed.’

Dandy sat on the extreme edge, and Mrs. Mel pursued: 

‘Now, Dandy, tell me what your master said at the table.’

’Talked at ’em like a lord, he did,’ said Dandy, stupidly consoling the boxed ear.

‘What were his words?’

Dandy’s peculiarity was, that he never remembered anything save when drunk, and Mrs. Mel’s dose had rather sobered him.  By degrees, scratching at his head haltingly, he gave the context.

“’Gentlemen, I hear for the first time, you’ve claims against my poor father.  Nobody shall ever say he died, and any man was the worse for it.  I’ll meet you next week, and I’ll bind myself by law.  Here’s Lawyer Perkins.  No; Mr. Perkins.  I’ll pay off every penny.  Gentlemen, look upon me as your debtor, and not my father."’

Delivering this with tolerable steadiness, Dandy asked, ‘Will that do?’

‘That will do,’ said Mrs. Mel.  ’I’ll send you up some tea presently.  Lie down, Dandy.’

The house was dark and silent when Evan, refreshed by his rest, descended to seek his mother.  She was sitting alone in the parlour.  With a tenderness which Mrs. Mel permitted rather than encouraged, Evan put his arm round her neck, and kissed her many times.  One of the symptoms of heavy sorrow, a longing for the signs of love, made Evan fondle his mother, and bend over her yearningly.  Mrs. Mel said once:  ’Dear Van; good boy!’ and quietly sat through his caresses.

‘Sitting up for me, mother?’ he whispered.

‘Yes, Van; we may as well have our talk out.’

‘Ah!’ he took a chair close by her side, ’tell me my father’s last words.’

‘He said he hoped you would never be a tailor.’

Evan’s forehead wrinkled up.  ‘There’s not much fear of that, then!’

His mother turned her face on him, and examined him with a rigorous placidity; all her features seeming to bear down on him.  Evan did not like the look.

‘You object to trade, Van?’

’Yes, decidedly, mother-hate it; but that’s not what I want to talk to you about.  Didn’t my father speak of me much?’

’He desired that you should wear his militia sword, if you got a commission.’

‘I have rather given up hope of the Army,’ said Evan.

Mrs. Mel requested him to tell her what a colonel’s full pay amounted to; and again, the number of years it required, on a rough calculation, to attain that grade.  In reply to his statement she observed:  ’A tailor might realize twice the sum in a quarter of the time.’

‘What if he does-double, or treble?’ cried Evan, impetuously; and to avoid the theme, and cast off the bad impression it produced on him, he rubbed his hands, and said:  ’I want to talk to you about my prospects, mother.’

‘What are they?’ Mrs. Mel inquired.

The severity of her mien and sceptical coldness of her speech caused him to inspect them suddenly, as if she had lent him her eyes.  He put them by, till the gold should recover its natural shine, saying:  ’By the way, mother, I ‘ve written the half of a History of Portugal.’