t think how well I feel. I shall start with
you to-morrow for Devonshire. But, mother, here's my friend, here's
Tom Brown--you know him?"

"Yes indeed, I've known him for years," she said, and held out her
hand to Tom, who was now standing up behind the sofa. This was
Arthur's mother; tall, and slight, and fair, with masses of golden
hair drawn back from the broad white forehead, and the calm blue eye
meeting his so deep and open,--the eye that he knew so well, for it
was his friend's over again, and the lovely tender mouth that trembled
while he looked. She stood there a woman of thirty-eight, old enough
to be his mother, and one whose face showed the lines that must be
written on the faces of good men's wives and widows,--but he thought
he had never seen anything so beautiful. He couldn't help wondering if
Arthur's sisters were like her.

Tom held her hand, and looked her straight in the face; he could
neither let it go nor speak.

"Now, Tom," said Arthur, laughing, "where are your manners? You'll
stare my mother out of countenance." Tom dropped the little hand with
a sigh. "There, sit down, both of you. Here, dearest mother, there's
room here," and he made a place on the sofa for her. "Tom, you needn't
go; I'm sure you won't be called up at first lesson." Tom felt that he
would risk being floored at every lesson for the rest of his natural
school-life sooner than go; so sat down. "And now," said Arthur, "I
have realized one of the dearest wishes of my life,--to see you two
together."

TOM'S REWARDS.

And then he led away the talk to their home in Devonshire, and the red
bright earth, and the deep green combes,[21] and the peat[22] streams
like cairngorm[23] pebbles, and the wild moor[24] with its high cloudy
Tors[25] for a giant background to the picture,--till Tom got jealous,
and stood up for the clear chalk streams, and the emerald water
meadows and great elms and willows of the dear old Royal county, as he
gloried to call it. And the mother sat on quiet and loving, rejoicing
in their life. The quarter-to-ten struck, and the bell rang for bed,
before they had well begun their talk as it seemed.

[21] #Combes#: valleys.

[22] #Peat#: a kind of turf used as fuel.

[23] #Cairngorm#: a yellow or brown variety of crystallized
quartz found in Cairngorm, Scotland.

[24] #Moor#: an extensive waste plain covered with heath.

[25] #Tors#: high-pointed hills or rocks.

Then Tom rose w