“I will by-and-bye, but first let us get him settled. Put him into my room, it’s the most airy. I’ll tell you who he is, mother.” The two had gone upstairs as they were speaking, and Macneillie closed the door of his room behind them, and began helping in a deft, sailorlike way to strip the sheets off his bed. “He is the boy I told you about years ago, who saved me from making an end of myself on Christine’s wedding day.” At the name, a sort of shudder of distaste passed through Mrs. Macneillie; it was a name very rarely mentioned by either of them, and the mother fondly hoped that at last her son had banished from his mind all memory of that romance of his youth. But, dearly as they loved each other, there was a good deal of reserve between them, and she could not tell how it was with him. After his absence in America, he had come back looking much older, but apparently in good health and spirits, and more than ever engrossed by his work. Little as she liked his profession, for she was full of old-fashioned prejudice and clung to all her old traditions, she nevertheless often blessed it in her heart for she saw that he lived for it, and, spite of herself, could not help taking some interest in his efforts to raise the drama, to give only such plays as were worth acting, and to manage his company in the best possible way. Still it was undoubtedly the grief of her life that her son had chosen the stage instead of the ministry, and he was quite aware of it, and was obliged to get on without her entire sympathy. She was unable to see that he was really doing quite as good work as any minister in the land, nor did she understand that an actor in refusing to follow his clear vocation, would be as blameworthy as a divine who put his hand to the plough, and then looked back. She did not speak a word now until they had the clean sheets spread and all things ready for the invalid. Then she drew her son’s face down and kissed it. “I shall love to wait on him, Hugh, now that you have told me that.” “You’ll like it for his own sake too,” said Macneillie. “It takes a fellow of good mettle to tramp more than a hundred miles on six-pennyworth of bread, and wear the look he wore when I found him. Oddly enough, too, I learnt something about him from Miss Kay’s letter on Saturday; he belonged to that company that failed, and she told me that she much feared he had spent almost all the money he had left, on sending back to London a forlorn little child-actress who had been deserted by the manager’s wife.” “A child? Poor wee thing! There are many perils and dangers in your profession, Hugh, you can’t deny that.” “Yes there are,” he said, “but I am not sure that life in society, or in other professions, or in shops and factories, isn’t even more risky. As for this little Ivy Grant, you may be quite happy about her; he had the good sense to send her to trustworthy friends.”