No more was said at this time by either.  Mrs. Howland sought the earliest opportunity to be alone with her son, when she informed him of his father’s purpose to send him to sea.  Andrew was somewhat startled by this information, and replied, instantly—­

“I don’t want to go to sea, mother.”

“Nor do I wish you to go, Andrew,” said Mrs. Howland.  “You are too young to bear the hard usage that would certainly fall to your lot.  But your father is very determined about the matter.”

“I won’t go!” boldly declared the boy.

“Andrew!  Andrew! don’t speak in that manner,” said the mother in a reproving voice.

“I’ll run away first!”

An indignant flush came into the lad’s face as he said this.

Mrs. Howland was both startled and alarmed at this bold and unexpected declaration, and for a time she hardly knew what to say.  At length, in a voice so changed that Andrew looked up, half wonderingly, into her face, she said—­

“My son, do you love me?”

Not until the question was repeated did Andrew make any reply.  Then he answered, in a low, unsteady voice, for something in her manner had touched his feelings.

“You know I love you, mother; for you are the only one who loves me.”

“For the sake, then, of that love, let me ask you to do one thing, Andrew,” said Mrs. Howland.

“What is that mother?”

“Go back to your teacher, and ask him to take you into the school again.”

A flush came warmly into the boy’s face, and he shook his head in a positive manner.

“I wish you to do it for my sake, Andrew,” urged Mrs. Howland.

“I can’t, mother.  And it would not do any good.”

“Yes, it will do good.  You were wrong in not going punctually to school.  All that is now required of you is to acknowledge this, and ask to be restored to your place.”

Andrew stood silent and gloomy by his mother’s side.

“Were you not wrong in absenting yourself from school at the proper hour?” asked Mrs. Howland, in a calm, penetrating voice.

There was no reply.

“Say, Andrew?” urged the mother.

“Yes, ma’am.  I suppose I was.”

“Was not your teacher right in objecting to this?”

“I suppose so.”

“And right in sending you home if you would not obey the rules of the school?”

The boy assented.

“Very well.  Then you alone are to blame for the present trouble, and it rests with you to remove it.  For my sake, go back to school, promise to do right in future, and ask to be reinstated.  Will not this be better than going to sea, or leaving your (sic) fathers’s house, as you thoughtlessly threatened to do just now?”

The tender earnestness with which Mrs. Howland spoke, more than the reasons she urged, subdued the stubborn spirit of the boy.

“You know how determined your father is,” she continued.  “In his intention to send you to sea he is entirely in earnest, and nothing will prevent his doing so but your going back to school.  You threaten to run away.  That would avail nothing.  You are but a boy, and would be restored to us in a week.  Think of the trouble you will bring upon me.  Andrew!  Andrew! unless you do as I desire, you will break my heart.”