"Why need you go?" said she querulously, at length. "You'll be
getting in some mischief or another again. Can't you stop at home
quiet with me?"
Jem got up, and walked about the room in despairing impatience. She
would not understand his feelings. At last he stopped right before
the place where she was sitting, with an air of injured meekness on
her face.
"Mother! I often think what a good man father was! I've often
heard you tell of your courting days; and of the accident that
befell you, and how ill you were. How long is it ago?"
"Near upon five-and-twenty years," said she, with a sigh.
"You little thought when you were so ill you should live to have
such a fine strapping son as I am, did you now?"
She smiled a little and looked up at him, which was just what he
wanted.
"Thou'rt not so fine a man as thy father was, by a deal," said she,
looking at him with much fondness, notwithstanding her depreciatory
words.
He took another turn or two up and down the room. He wanted to bend
the subject round to his own case.
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