speech which he would not otherwise have ventured,--not from any
inherent lack of candor, but from a reluctance to speak of himself.

"That's it, Martha," he said. "It is her work that I have the farm at
all, and I only go away the oftener now, that I may the sooner stay with
her altogether. The thought of her makes each trip lonelier than the
last."

"I like to hear you say that, Gilbert. And it must be a comfort to you,
withal, to know that you are working as much for your mother's sake as
your own. I think I should feel so, at least, in your place. I feel my
own mother's loss more now than when she died, for I was then so young
that I can only just remember her face."

"But you have a father!" he exclaimed, and the words were scarcely out
of his mouth before he became aware of their significance, uttered by
his lips. He had not meant so much,--only that she, like him, still
enjoyed one parent's care. The blood came into his face; she saw and
understood the sign, and broke a silence which would soon have become
painful.

"Yes," she said, "and I am very grateful that he is spared; but we seem
to belong most to our mothers."

"That is the truth," he said firmly, lifting his head with the impulse
of his recovered pride, and meeting her eyes without flinching. "I
belong altogether to mine. She has made me a man and set me upon my
feet. From this time forward, my place is to stand between her and the
world!"