If I hadn't caught a glimpse of her hands I shouldn't have known, but I did happen to see them as she came in. They were clinched tight at her sides, just the way I've often clinched mine before I went into a game on which a good deal depended. But the next minute her arms were round my neck in the old way, and she was holding me so tight I could hardly breathe--and I don't believe she could breathe much, either, for I was giving her back every bit of that, with some to spare. I have an idea she was saying, inside, "I won't--I _won't_"--just the same way I was. And she didn't--and I didn't--though _not to_ certainly pulled harder than anything I ever _didn't_ do in my life! She didn't keep me long. Just that one great hug, and something else that goes with it, and then _what_ do you think she said? If I'd had a hat on I'd have taken it off to her at that moment. She looked up into my face, and showed me hers, all smiling, and not a tear in her eyes, and said: _"Jacky, you're a brick!"_ And then I just broke out into a great laugh of relief, and I shouted: _"Mother, you're a whole brickyard!"_ And we went downstairs carrying my luggage between us, and the worst was over, and the thing I dreaded hadn't happened. Perhaps you think she ought to have prayed over me, and given me a Bible, and a lot of good motherly advice. Don't you think it! The prayers had been spread over twenty-two years of my life, and the Bible was all marked up with her markings. As for the good advice--well--if she hadn't done her level best, long before that, to teach me to keep clean, and think straight, and "hit the line hard"--it was too late to begin then. But she didn't have to begin then, because the thing was done, as well as any mother on earth could do it. And if you think that little thumb-marked book wasn't in my bag at that minute, you don't think right, that's all. Dad said a few fatherly things to me before I went, like the all-round trump he is, and I was glad to have him. I could stand that all right. But I couldn't have borne anything from Mother--not then--and she knew it. How did she know? That's what gets me. But she did, the way she's always seemed to know things without being told. She's that sort, you see. They all went down to the station with me, in the seven-passenger, with Dad driving. We didn't talk much on the way. I tried not to see the familiar old streets. I hadn't told anybody what train I was going on, but some of my old friends found out and came down just the same, and were there in a bunch to send me off. They hurried up to us, and shook hands and jollied me, and everything was lively. When the train came in we all went together to it, and then I saw the boys stand back and look at Mother. I don't know what they expected to see, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't what they did see.