Page:Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal, t. II.djvu/173

 my kindness in offering it to him. Then I shook hands with him, and we parted.

"Where was I to go now—home?

"I wished my mother had come back. I had got a letter from her that very afternoon; in it she said that, instead of returning in a day or two, as she had intended doing, she might, perhaps, go off to Italy for a short time. She was suffering from a slight attack of bronchitis, and she dreaded the fogs and dampness of our town.

"Poor mother! I now thought that, since my intimacy with Teleny, there had been a slight estrangement between us; not that I loved her less, but because Teleny engrossed all my mental and bodily faculties. Still, just now that he was away, I almost felt mother-sick, and I decided to write a long and affectionate letter to her as soon as I got home.

"Meanwhile I walked on at hap-hazard. After wandering about for an hour, I found myself unexpectedly before Teleny's house. I had wended my steps thitherwards, without knowing where I went. I looked up at Teleny's windows with longing eyes. How I loved that house.