“Yes, George, to tell the truth I have; but I am not going to share it with you. So don’t ask me. You have been only too generous--the best of sons--and if I have seen but little of you of late, nor seemed a real mother to you, I have never forgotten you day and night, and when I heard that you were so ill, I cannot tell you what I suffered, or describe my feelings.” (The Major’s feelings were those of complacent anticipation; if George died unmarried, his income of five hundred a year lapsed to his mother for her life.) “Are you quite sure that the sea voyage has set you up? And _tell_ me, dear, do you wear flannel next to your skin?” gazing up into his face with an expression of intense anxiety. “Do I look like an invalid?” he returned with an evasive smile. “I am as right as a trivet now. I was well before we reached Suez. Never mind me, but tell me all about Denis,” and leaning towards her, he said: “Your trouble is about _him_, is it not?” “George, you must be a wizard. How could you guess? Well, you are right; it _is_ about him. His college expenses are frightful, and his tailor’s bill is incredible.” “I should not have supposed that he spent much on his clothes,” remarked his brother gravely. “But he does, and there is a long account at his grocer’s--he breakfasts in his rooms--for tea and sugar, and raisins, and candles--such _quantities_ of candles, but he will study at night.” (Miserable Mrs. Malone! for candles, read whisky, for sugar, porter, for tea, gin). “I really dare not show them to his father,” and she put a ragged lace handkerchief to her eyes, and wept. “Perhaps, mother, you had better show them to _me_,” suggested George. “No, no, you are far too liberal. You have little enough as it is,” she sobbed. “I am past help,” casting her thoughts over all their debts, their accumulating debts in Dublin, Ballingoole, and at the county bank. “You might as well try to bale the sea with a tea-spoon as to help _me_.” “But if I may not help my own mother, whom may I help?” he urged eagerly. “I have been living at a cheap little up country station, where I had no way of spending rupees, and I have a good balance at Cox’s. I can let you have a cheque for three hundred pounds at once.” “Oh, George, I am ashamed to take it,” she whimpered, drawing him towards her, and throwing her arms round his neck. “You make me feel like a guilty woman; you make me feel like a thief.” “Mother, you must never say that to _me_. Besides, you forget that I brought you home no presents. I was too hurried to look for things in Bombay, and I am sure you can lay out the money far more sensibly than I should have done, in trashy curiosities.” (This three hundred pounds was part of a sum that he had set aside for his trip home; he had had visions of a couple of clever hunters, of renting a small shooting-box, of a round of the London theatres, and a trip to Paris and Nice.)