‘Still, he should not be away every evening,’ said the mother, shaking her head; and she drew him down to her and kissed his cheek tenderly. ‘_My_ boy! we must comfort each other,’ she said, with soft tears in her eyes. Her heart bled for him in the troubles she divined, and she was one of the women who never lose their interest in the trials of youthful love. Yet, sympathetic as she was, she smiled too as she went upstairs. He thought this would last for ever--that he would never change his mind, nor suffer a new affection to steal into his heart. She smiled a little, and shook her head all by herself. How short-lived were their nevers and for evers! She went up to the drawing-room, where she had spent so many quiet evenings, pleased to think that her boys were happy, though they were not with her; where she had thought of them at school, at college, in all the different places they had passed through, trying to follow them in her thoughts, anxiously wondering what they were doing, often pausing to breathe out a brief, silent prayer for them in the midst of her knitting, or when she closed her book for a moment. This had become so habitual to her, that she would do it almost without thinking. ‘Oh, bless my boys; keep them from evil!’--between how many sentences of how many books--in the pauses of how many conversations--woven through and through how many pieces of wool, had those simple supplications gone! By-and-by she heard the door close of the next house, the bell ring in her own, the familiar step on the stair, and the neighbour came in and took his usual place. They sat on each side of the fireplace, in which still glimmered a little fire, though the season was warm. It irked her that she could not continue with him the conversation she had been having with Edward; but till Oswald spoke what could she say? and they had plenty to talk about. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if it was a bad dream when I was sent away--not knowing why, or where to go?’ ‘Where were you going? I never wished it. How I should have missed you now! It is in trouble that we want our friends most. Edward has been so good and kind. He says he will never leave me; that we must live together. And he thinks he will always think so--poor boy! I have not the heart to tell him that he will soon change.’ ‘Why should he change? He may search far enough before he will find such another home. If I were he, I would not change either. He is more to be trusted than Oswald.’ ‘Oh, you are mistaken. My boy is----’ ‘I am not saying ill of him. If I ever wish to do that, I will not come to his mother with it. But Oswald thinks more of himself. Where is he to-night? He has left you alone, to bear all your loneliness, to think over everything.’ ‘You know I never taught my children that they were to keep by me. I might have liked it, but I did not think it right. They are very, very good; but no one can upbraid me with keeping them at my apron-strings.’