“Scripture ain’t a bit too strong to use freely about our Phil,--my Phil,” said the old woman, pushing her spectacles to the top of her head and beginning to walk the kitchen floor. “All the hopin’, an’ fearin’, an’ waitin’, an’ nursin’, an’ teachin’, an’ thinkin’, an’ prayin’, that that boy has cost comes hurryin’ into my mind when I think about him. If there’s anythin’ he ought to be an’ isn’t, I don’t see what it is, an’ I can’t see where his mother’s to blame for it. Whatever good there is in me I’ve tried to put into him, an’ whatever I was lackin’ in I’ve tried to get for him elsewhere. You’ve been to him ev’rythin’ a father should, an’ he never could have got along without you. You’ve been lots to him that I never could be, he bein’ a boy, an’ I never cease thankin’ heaven for it; but whenever my mind gets on a strain about him I kind o’ get us mixed up, an’ feel as if ’twas me instead of him that was takin’ whatever happened, an’ the longer it lasts the less I can think of him any other way. There!” The old farmer rose to his feet while this speech was under way; then he removed his hat, which he seldom did after coming into the house, unless reminded. When his wife concluded, he took both her hands and dropped upon his knees; he had often done it before,--years before, when overcome by her young beauty,--but never before had he done it with so much of reverence. CHAPTER XXII. SEVERAL GREEN-EYED MONSTERS. As the season hurried toward the Christmas holidays, there came to Philip Hayn the impression that he was being seen so much in public with Lucia, never against that young lady’s inclination, that perhaps some people were believing him engaged to her, or sure to be. This impression became more distinct when some of his new business-acquaintances rallied or complimented him, and when he occasionally declined an invitation, given _viva voce_, by explaining that he had promised to escort Miss Tramlay somewhere that evening. If this explanation were made to a lady, as was usually the case, a knowing smile, or at least a significant look, was almost sure to follow: it began to seem to Phil that the faces of the young women of New York said a great deal more than their tongues, and said it in a way that could not be answered, which was quite annoying. If he was to seem engaged, he would prefer that appearances might not be deceitful. Again and again he was on the point of asking the question which he little doubted would be favorably answered, but he always restrained himself by the reminder that he was only a clerk on a salary that could not support a wife, bred like Lucia, in New York, and that villa plots at Haynton Bay were not selling as rapidly as they should if he were to become well-to-do; indeed, they scarcely were selling at all. Who could be expected to become interested in building-sites on the sea-shore when even in the sheltered streets of the city the wind was piercing the thickest overcoats? And who could