“Come along, then,” cried the woman, taking his hand with a firm clasp. “You’re willing, Mrs. Laurence?” The poor, pale mother turned wistfully to her boy, who looked her firmly in the eyes, and smiled as if rocking cradles and tending babies were the great aim and glory of his young life. “It will be in the house, and—and you’ll be a mother to him, Mrs. Smith?” “Won’t I?” answered the dame. “And you will let him come home sometimes?” “Every night of his life, and three times a day, if you want him. Goodness gracious! you don’t expect that we intend to work a little fellow like that every hour in the twenty-four. I didn’t come here like a highway robber to run off with your son, and make a white slave of him; but just to give him what he seems to want, something to do, and something to eat.” “And I’m in a hurry to begin,” said James, piling up his school-books on a set of hanging-shelves over the fire-place, and resolutely suppressing a big sigh that rose to his lips. “Perhaps the coal would have been too much for me. At any rate, I can do the other. But I say, Mrs. Smith?” “Well, Jimmy. Just thought of something, I see.” “Can I sleep at home? Ruth there is awful timid, and is sure to lie awake without a man in the house. Besides, mother, who has always been used to it, and Eva, who likes to have me about.” “Indeed, I do, darling!” cried Eva, kissing the bright, young face; and turning to Mrs. Smith, she said, tenderly, “He does seem to be a protection, and we all love him so.” “Of course, you do! He’s just the lovingest little shaver in the world! I only hope that John Smith, junior, will be up to his mark, which I think he will, being bright as a new dollar, if sich things are in these greenbacky days. As for sleeping at home, I never had any other idea. Now, come away, Jimmy, or something else will turn up; and my time is short, having left Kate Gorman tending Jerusha Maria, and breakfast on the table, which Smith won’t touch a mouthful of till I am there to cut up and pour out, being of that loving nature—though he does, sometimes, cut up a little rusty with customers. Come, Jimmy.” James pulled down his sleeves, and put on his cap, after which he kissed his mother and sisters with clinging affection, as if he were starting on a whaling voyage, and marched off to the grocery, side by side with Mrs. Smith, who stopped in the store long enough to fill his pockets with nuts and raisins. Then she took him up stairs, and laid the baby she called Jerusha Maria into his arms, and taught him, with brief scolding, how to arrange his knees, so that the little curly head and the feet, in their tiny worsted socks, should not come too closely together, while the rest of that plump body dropped through, and was ignominiously doubled up, which happened, I am ashamed to say, more than was proper during the first half-hour of the lad’s promotion.