him out of angry eyes. How could there be any hope of a boy who sneered
at his mother? Yet you need not judge him too harshly.

He thought of his mother, indeed, when he laughed; but alas! he thought
of her as drunk. And he knew her scarcely at all, save as that word
described her. How _could_ "mother" mean to him what it meant to
Alfred Ried? what it meant even to Dirk Colson, whose mother, weak
indeed in body and spirit, full of complaining words, oftentimes weakly
bitter words to him, yet patched his clothes so long as she could get
patches and thread, and would have washed them if she could have got
soap, and been able to bring the water, and if her only tub hadn't been
in pawn. Oh, yes, there are degrees in mothers.

Mrs. Roberts, meantime, broke off blossoms with lavish hand, and made
bouquets for Nimble Dick and for Dirk. He took the bright-hued ones with
a smile, but the lily he held by itself, and still looked at it.

They went away at last noisily; growing almost, if not quite, rough
towards one another, at least, and directly they were out of the door,
Nimble Dick gave a whoop that would have chilled the blood of nervous
women. But matron and maiden looked at each other and laughed.

"We have kept them pent up all the evening, and that is the escape-valve
being raised to avoid a general explosion." This was Mrs. Roberts'
explanation.

They were quite alone. Alfred, on being invited in low tones to tarry
and talk things over, had shaken his head, and replied, significantly:--

"Thank you! no; I am one of them, and must stand on the same level."