will be nothing to me, my son. Think
again, before you give up your mother."

He would never give her up, he said, with a rough boyish caress; he
should see her often--often, and it was wicked, wrong to talk about
refusing his help; he would talk to his grandfather and make him
ashamed of himself--indeed there was no end to the glowing plans he
made. Nea's heart sickened as she heard him, she knew his boyish
selfishness and restlessness were leading him astray, and some of the
bitterest tears she ever shed were shed that night.

But from that day she ceased to plead with him, and before many weeks
were over Percy had left his mother's humble home, and after a short
stay at Belgrave House, was on his way to Eton with his cousin Erle
Huntingdon.

Percy never owned in his secret heart that he had done a mean thing in
giving up his mother for the splendors of Belgrave House, that the
thought that her son was living in the home that was closed to her was
adding gall and bitterness to the widow's life; he thought he was
proving himself a dutiful son when he came to see her so often, though
the visits were scarcely all he wished them to be.

True, his mother never reproached him, and always welcomed him kindly,
but her lips were closed on all that related to his home life. She
could speak of his school-fellows and studies, but of his grandfather,
and of his new pony and fine gun she would not speak, or even care to
hear about them. When he took her his boyish gifts they were quietly
but firmly returned to him. Even poor little Florence, or Fluff as
they called her, was obliged to give back the blue-eyed doll that he
had bought for her. Fluff had fretted so about the loss of the doll
that her mother had bought her another.

Percy carried away his gifts, and did not come for a long time. His
mother's white wistful face seemed to put him in the wrong. "Any other
fellow would have done the same under the circumstances," thought
Percy, sullenly; "I think my mother is too hard on me;" but even his
conscience misgave him, when he would see her turn away sometimes with
the tears in her eyes, after one of his boasting speeches. He was too
young to be hardened. He knew, yes, surely he must have known? that he
was grieving the tenderest heart in the world, and one day he would
own that not all his grandfather's wealth could compensate him for
being a traitor to his mother.

CHAPTER XI.

THE WEE WIFIE.

And that same G