"I count for nothing," says Bob, quietly. "A man's friendship can be of no service to a woman, unless he is in some authorised position of relationship or connection with her; otherwise he does her more harm than good. What she needs, and what I hoped she would have found in you, mother, is a woman-friend." "If," replies his mother, drawing herself up and looking very stiff--"If she is, as you say, _too proud_ to avail herself of the home that I am, _for your sake_, willing to offer her, she is likely to be _too proud_ to consent to be befriended in any other way." Brandon looks at her for a moment with something akin to indignant scorn in his face, dutiful son as he usually is; then, repenting, throws himself on his knees beside her, and clasping his arms about her withered neck, says, entreatingly: "Mother, why are you so hard upon her?--what has she done to you? Just think, how would you have liked Jane or Bessy, when they were her age, to have been driven out into the world to make their own way, without a single soul to say a kind word to them, or give them a helping hand; and," he continues, musingly, "they never could have been exposed to the temptations she will be--they never were beautiful, like her!" He had never spoken truer words in all his life, but the truth is not always the best to be spoken. "At all events," says the old lady, with emphasis, freeing herself from his arms, and getting rather red in the face--"At all events, Bob, however disparagingly you may speak of them, they were and are good, modest, pious girls, that would not trifle with an honest man's affection for their own amusement, as handsomer ones have done before now." "I never heard of any honest man having given them the chance," retorts Bob, sarcastically, quitting his caressing posture, with a revulsion of feeling as sudden as it was complete. "The servants are assembled," says the youngest, best, modestest, piousest of the girls, opening the door, and putting in her little drab face. "Must I tell them to go back to the kitchen for a quarter of an hour, or has Bob nearly finished his _private communication?_" "Quite!" replies Bob, emphatically. He is standing leaning against the chimneypiece, his colour heightened, and a sorely angered look on his open simple face. "You need not wait for me, mother," he continues, seeing his parent look inquiringly towards him, as she moves with the slowness of age and portliness to the door; "I shall not come to prayers to-night. When one prays, one ought to be in charity with all the world, ought not one? And I am not." [1] A real Revivalist hymn. CHAPTER XXV.