sh as that; and if you
find that London amuses you and is not too expensive,--for you know,
Tony, what a slender purse we have,--stay a week,--two weeks, Tony, if
you like it."

"What a good little woman it is!" said he, pressing her towards him; and
the big tears trembled in his eyes and rolled heavily along his cheeks.
"Now for the ugly part,--the money, I mean."

"I have eleven pounds in the house, Tony, if that will do to take with
you."

"Do, mother! Of course it will. I don't mean to spend near so much; but
how can you spare such a sum? that's the question."

"I just had it by, Tony, for a rainy day, as they call it; or I meant
to have made you a smart present on the fourth of next month, for your
birthday.--I forget, indeed, what I intended it for," said she, wiping
her eyes, "for this sudden notion of yours has driven everything clean
out of my head; and all I can think of is if there be buttons on your
shirts, and how many pairs of socks you have."

"I'm sure everything is right; it always is. And now go to bed like a
dear little woman, and I 'll come in and say good-bye before I start in
the morning."

"No, no, Tony; I 'll be up and make you a cup of tea."

"That you shall not. What a fuss to make of a trip to London; as if I
was going to Auckland or the Fijee Islands? By the way, mother, would
n't you come out to me if the great man gave me something very fine and
lucrative?--for I can't persuade myself that he won't make me a governor
somewhere."

She could not trust herself to speak, and merely clutched his hand in
both her own and held it fast.

"There's another thing," said he, after a short struggle with himself;
"there may possibly be notes or messages of one sort or another from
Lyle Abbey; and just hint that I 've been obliged to leave home for
a day or two. You need n't say for where nor how long; but that I was
called away suddenly,--too hurriedly to go up and pay my respects, and
the rest of it I 'm not quite sure you 'll be troubled in this way; but
if you should, say what I have told you."

"The doctor will be sorry not to have said good-bye, Tony."

"I may be back again before he need hear of my having gone. And now,
good-night, dear mother; I 'll come and see you before I start."

When Tony Butler found himself alone in his room, he opened his
writing-desk and prepared to write,--a task, for him, of no common
magnitude and of the very rarest occurrence. What it exacted in the way