And with honest tears in his eyes, the young man thrust his letter into the Colonel's hands, half reluctant, it is true, to show his mother's expressions of love, but eager, above all, that she should be done full justice to, and acquitted of all unkindness. The Colonel took the letter with grave sympathy. It was not by way of conquering Roger's heart entirely that he put on his spectacles with so much serious attention, and applied himself to the hurried and half-coherent letter as if it were something of the gravest importance. He did naturally, and spontaneously from his own heart, this, which was the most exquisite compliment to the young man; and the Colonel's glasses grew dim as he read. It was the letter of a weak, loving woman, with too little strength of character to assert for herself any right of protecting or succouring her first-born, who was alien and strange to her husband and his family. One could almost see the gentle, broken-spirited woman over-ridden even by her own children, uncertain of her own mind, in weak health, and with nerves which everything affected, as one glanced over those hurried lines, which seemed to be written in absolute fear of discovery. There was little in them but the mother's yearning for her boy--her dear boy, her first-born, her own Roger, whom she prayed for on her knees every day, and thought of every hour. There was neither wisdom nor reason in the epistle--the poor woman had nothing to advise, nothing to offer. A cold observer might have thrown the whole away as affectionate nonsense, and desired to know what benefit that could be to the young man in his troubles. The Colonel knew better. "Therewithal the water stood in his eyes." He knew, without a word from Roger, how this tender touch had stanched the wounds of the young man's heart. The only thing which he did not understand was a blurred and hasty postscript, to the effect that the enclosed was _her own_, and that her dear boy need have no hesitation in using it. This Musgrave explained to him by holding up, as he received back the letter, a twenty-pound note. "And my mother enclosed this, sir," he said, looking up with an honest eagerness which twenty twenty-pound notes could not have produced--the poor lad was so proud to be able to show this evidence of his mother's concern for him. "I know she must have saved it up--spared it from her own necessities for me; I know she must, for she knows very well I would never receive an alms from _him_," cried poor Roger. "I--I daresay you think it's not very much to talk about, Colonel, but I could not rest till you had seen that I was wrong. To think I should have done her such injustice!--and you perceive, sir, that I can indeed take a week or two's leisure before I decide upon my future _now_."