"Mother, I am in daily expectation of receiving something for my writing now; the post this evening may bring me some good news." He said this with hesitation, and there was little of hope in the expression of his face. "Good news! good news about your writing! that's the good news 'ill never come; never, you good-for-nothing scribbler!" She screamed forth the last words in a voice of frenzy. Her tone was a mixture of Scotch and Irish accents. She had resided for some years of her earlier life in Ireland. As the young writer looked at her and listened to her, the pen shook in his hand. "Go out, and work, and make money. Ay, the working people can live on the best, while you, with that pen in your fingers, are starving yourself and me." "Mother, I am not strong enough for labor, and my tastes are strongly, very strongly, for literature." "Not strong enough! you're twenty past. It's twenty long years since the cursed night I brought you into the world." The young writer gazed keenly on his mother, for he was afraid she was under the influence of intoxication, as was too often the case; but he did not know how she could have obtained money, as he knew there was not a farthing in the house. The woman seemed to divine the meaning of his looks-- "I'm not drunk, don't think it," she cried; "it's the hunger and the sorrow that's in my head." "Well, mother, perhaps this evening's post may have some good intelligence." "What did the morning's post bring? There, there--don't I see it--them's the bonnie hopes of yours." She pointed to the table, where lay a couple of returned manuscripts. Andrew glanced toward the parcel, and made a strong effort to suppress the deep sigh which heaved his breast. "Ay, there it is--there's a bundle of that stuff ye spend your nights and days writing; taking the flesh off your bones, and making that face of yours so black and yellow; it's your father's face, too--ay--well it's like him now, indeed--the ruffian. I wish I had never seen him, nor you, nor this world." "My father," said Andrew, and a feeling of interest overspread his bloodless face. "You have told me little of him. Why do you speak of him so harshly?"