Nor, as the future occurred, need either have had
apprehension that the children would tell their mother
and so set up an insurmountable barrier between them.
A previous experience had warned Angela that it were
wise to keep from her mother joys that were out of
the ordinary run of events.
Returning homeward that day, a little in advance of
Mary, she therefore addressed her brother upon the
matter.
“Davie, I hope that man will come to-morrow.”
“I hope it, too.”
“We won’t tell mother, Davie.”
“Why?”
“Because mother’ll say No.”
“Why?”
“Because she always says No, stupid.”
“Why?”
“Oh, Davie, you are stupid! I don’t
know why; I only know. Don’t you
remember that lady that used to talk to Miss Humf’ay
and play with us? Well, when we told mother,
mother said No, didn’t she? and the lady played
with those abom’able red-dress children that
make faces instead.”
“Will he play with the abom’able red-dress
children that make faces if we tell mother?”
“Of course he will.”
“Why?”
“They always do, stupid.”
“Why?”
Angela ran back. “Oh, Miss Humf’ay,
Davie is so irrating! He will say Why
....”
There is a lesson for parents in that conversation,
I suspect.
Leaning from our bridge we may content ourselves with
a hurried shot at George, laboriously toiling at his
books, sedulously attending his classes, with his
Mary spending glorious Saturday mornings that, as
they brought him nearer to knowledge of her, sent him
from her yet more fevered; and, straining towards
another point, we will focus for an instant upon Margaret
his cousin, and Bill Wyvern, her adored.
Mr. William Wyvern had most vigorously whacked about
among events since that evening when his Margaret
had composed her verses for George. At that time
a fellow-student with George at St. Peter’s
Hospital, he had now abandoned the profession and was
started upon the literary career (as he named it)
that long he had wished to follow. The change
had been come by with little difficulty. Professor
Wyvern— that eminent biologist whose fame
was so tremendous that even now a normally forgetful
Press yet continued to paragraph him while he spent
in absent-minded seclusion the ebb of that life which
at the flood had so mightily advanced knowledge—Professor
Wyvern was too much attached to his son, too docile
in the hands of his loving wife, to gainsay any wish
that Bill might urge and that Mrs. Wyvern might support.
Bill achieved his end: the stories he had had
printed in magazines, secretly shown to his proud
mother, were now brought forth and chuckled over with
glee by the Professor. The famous biologist struggled
through one of the stories, vowed he had read them
all, cheerily patted Bill’s arm with his shaky
old hand, and cheerfully abandoned the hope he had
held of seeing his son a great surgeon.
