“It is not home, of course,” he said, with great nonchalance, “but, granting that, mother, I don’t see what difference it makes to me. It’s all well enough. I don’t want any thing more--it’s near the work, and it’s in a decent house--that should be enough to please you.” “Hold your peace, Patie--do you think I’m careless of my bairn’s comfort?” cried the Mistress, with a half tone of anger; “and wha’ was ever used to a place like this, coming out of Norlaw?” “But there can not be two Norlaws,” said Patie, “nor two homes. I want but one, for my part. I have no desire at present to like a second place as well.” “Eh, laddie, if you can but keep that thought, and be true!” cried the Mistress, “I wouldna heed, save for your ain comfort, where you were then.” “Do you doubt me, mother? what are you feared for? tell me, and I’ll know what to do,” said Patie, coming close to her, with his look of plain, unmistakable sincerity. “I’m no’ feared,” said the Mistress, those ever-rising, never-falling tears dimming her eyes again, while yet a little secondary emotion, half shame of her own suspicions, half petulance, rose to her voice; “but it’s a poor place for a laddie like you, bred up at hame--and it’s a great town, full of temptations--and night and day in a place like this, ilka street is full of evil--and naething but bare bed and board instead of hame. Oh! Patie if I was feared, it was because I knew mony a dreary story of lads that meant as well as yoursel’!” “Perhaps I was presumptuous, mother,” said Patie; “I will not say there’s no fear;--but there’s a difference between one man and another, and time and your own judgment will prove what’s temptation to me. Now, come, if you have rested enough--the air will do you more good than sitting here.” The Mistress was persuaded, and went out accordingly with her son, feeling strangely forlorn and solitary in the crowded thoroughfares, where she was struck with the common surprise of country people, to meet so many and to know no one. Still there was a certain solace in the calm summer evening, through which the moon was rising in that pale sky so far away and clear, above the hanging smoke of the town--and in Patie’s arm, which seemed to support her with more pride and tenderness now that Huntley was gone. The soft moon shining down upon the river, which here was not the commercial Clyde, of ships and steamers, the many half-distinguishable figures upon the Green opposite, from which color and light were fading, and the tranquillity of the night even here, bore back the thoughts of the mother into a tenderer channel. She put up her hand to her eyes to clear them. “Eh Patie! I think I see my son on the sea, looking up at that very sky,” said the Mistress, with a low sob; “how will I look at it from Norlaw, where Cosmo and me will be our lane?--and now but another day more, and I’ll lose you!” CHAPTER XXVI.