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, I have made a mess of everything," I muttered quickly. "I am not very old, but I have made a mess of any life I have had."

She drew my head down on her breast and held me close. For some time she did not speak.

"It will all come right, if you try," she said at last. "The beginning is not everything."

"It is not for myself I care. It is for you."

"For me, then." She paused. "But for me you are what you have always been and always will be, since I have no boy of my own. You are my son, the one being whom I love. Your future is what I think of and make plans for; and whenever I pray it is that you may be happy."