"Will you never have outgrown your babyhood, Traverse?" asked his mother, smiling at his affectionate ardor.
"Yes, dear little mother; in everything but the privilege of fondling you; that feature of babyhood I never shall outgrow," exclaimed the youth, kissing her again with all the ardor of his true and affectionate heart, and starting up to help her set the table.
He dragged the table out from under the window, spread the cloth and placed the cups and saucers upon it, while his mother took the biscuits from the oven and made the tea; so that in ten minutes from the moment in which he entered the room, mother and son were seated at their frugal supper.
"I suppose, to-morrow being Saturday, you will have to get up earlier than usual to go to the store?" said his mother.
"No, ma'am," replied the boy, looking up brightly, as if he were telling a piece of good news; "I am not wanted any longer. Mr. Spicer's own man has got well again and returned to work."
"So you are discharged?" said Mrs. Rocke, sadly.
"Yes, ma'am; but just think how fortunate that is, for I shall have a chance to-morrow of mending the fence and nailing up the gate and sawing wood enough to last you a week, besides doing all the other little odd jobs that have been waiting for me so long; and then on Monday I shall get more work."
"I wish I were sure of it," said the widow, whose hopes had long since been too deeply crushed to permit her ever to be sanguine.
When their supper was over and the humble service cleared away, the youth took his books and applied himself to study on the opposite side of the table at which his mother sat busied with her needlework. And there fell a perfect silence between them.
The widow's mind was anxious and her heart heavy; many cares never communicated to cloud the bright sunshine of her boy's soul oppressed hers. The rent had fallen fearfully behindhand, and the landlord threatened, unless the money could be raised to pay him, to seize their furniture and eject them from the premises. And how this money was to be raised she could not see at all. True, this meek Christian had often in her sad experience proved God's special providence at her utmost need, and now she believed in His ultimate interference, but in what manner He would now interpose she could not imagine, and her faith grew dim and her hope dark and her love cold.