Bad Hugh

"He looks as you did, Hugh, when you were a baby like him," she said,

while Chloe rejoined: "De very spawn of Mas'r Hugh, now. I 'tected it de fust minit. Can't

cheat dis chile," and, with a chuckle, which she meant to be very

expressive, the fat old woman waddled from the room.

Hugh and his mother were alone, and turning to her son, Mrs. Worthington

said, gently: "This is sad business, Hugh; worse than you imagine. Do you know how

folks will talk?"

"Let them talk," Hugh growled. "It cannot be much worse than it is now.

Nobody cares for Hugh Worthington; and why should they, when his own

mother and sister are against him, in actions if not in words?--one

sighing when his name is mentioned, as if he really were the most

provoking son that ever was born, and the other openly berating him as a

monster, a clown, a savage, a scarecrow, and all that. I tell you,

mother, there is but little to encourage me in the kind of life I'm

leading. Neither you nor Ad have tried to make anything of me."

Choking with tears, Mrs. Worthington said: "You wrong me, Hugh; I do try to make something of you. You are a dear

child to me, dearer than the other, but I'm a weak woman, and 'Lina

sways me at will."

A kind word unmanned Hugh at once, and kneeling by his mother, he put

his arms around her, and asked again her care for Adah.

"Hugh," and Mrs. Worthington looked him steadily in the face, "is Adah

your wife, or Willie your child?"

"Great guns, mother!" and Hugh started to his feet as quick as if a bomb

had exploded at his side. "No! Are you sorry, mother, to find me better

than you imagined it possible for a bad boy like me to be?"

"No, Hugh, not sorry. I was only thinking that I've sometimes fancied

that, as a married man, you might be happier, even if you did lose

Spring Bank; and when this woman came so strangely, and you seemed so

interested, I didn't know, I rather thought--"

"I know," and Hugh interrupted her. "You thought, maybe, I raised Ned

when I was in New York; and, as a proof of said resurrection, Mrs. Ned

and Ned, Junior, had come with their baggage."

If the hair was golden instead of brown, and the eyes a different shade,

he shouldn't "make so tremendous a fuss," he thought; and, with a sigh

to the memory of the lost Golden Hair, he turned abruptly to his mother,

and as if she had all the while been cognizant of his thoughts, said: "But that's nothing to do with the case in question. Will you be kind to

Adah Hastings, for my sake? And when Ad rides her highest horse, as she

is sure to do, will you smooth her down? Tell her Adah has as good a

right here as she, if I choose to keep her."