“Let you!” But she suddenly checked herself. “And, if not, when they will not let you, you will be sure to write, Colin? Now promise me that. Or, if anything should be amiss,--if you should not like the place, for there is no telling till you have tried it; if it _should_ so happen that they do not use you so well as they ought to do, send, if you cannot come, directly; and, if there is nobody else to help you that is better able,”--Fanny stood up, and clasped both his hands with deep energy between her own,--“I will stand by you as long as I live. I am not able to do much, but I can earn my living; and, if I work like a slave, you shall never want a farthing as long as I have one left for myself in the world! I have nursed you, Colin, when I was almost as little as yourself; and I feel the same to you as though your mother was mine too.” While Colin, with tears in his eyes, promised implicit compliance with all that had been requested of him, he yet, with the candour and warm-hearted generosity peculiar to his character, declared that Fanny ought to despise him if ever he trusted to the labour of her hands for a single meal, No: he would save all his yearly wages, and bring them home for her and his mother; and in time he should be able to maintain them both by his own labour, without their having any need to struggle for themselves. As for the rest, if anybody ill-used him, he was strong enough to stand his own ground: or, if not, he knew of another way to save himself, which would do quite as well, or better. “What other way? What do you mean?” asked Fanny very anxiously. “Oh, nothing,” said Colin; “only, if people do not treat us properly, we are not obliged to stay with them.” “But you must never think of running away,” she replied, “and going you do not know where. Come back home if they ill-treat you, and you will always be safe with us.” Their morning meal being now prepared, the three sat down to it with an undefined feeling of sadness which no effort could shake off. Some little extra luxury was placed upon the table for Colin; and many times was he made to feel that--however unconsciously to themselves--both his mother and Fanny anticipated all his slightest wants with unusual quickness; and waited upon him, and pressed him to his last ill-relished meal, with a degree of assiduity which rendered the sense of his parting with them doubly painful.