"My dearest boy, you feel a little feverish again. Why didn't you have lights? You've talked too much, and excited yourself in the dark."
"Oh, no, mother, you can'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 which 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 on straight in her 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
