Page:The Semi-detached House.djvu/274

 took up Charlie as she spoke, and perhaps the sight of his wistful eyes, and the touch of his tiny hands softened her, for she turned back and added: "Perhaps I have spoken too harshly, but the dead should never be named slightingly; she was Charlie's mother, too, do not say you never loved her."

And so she departed, leaving Willis more ashamed, more lowered in his own conceit than he could have supposed possible, and yet with a perception of the greatness and nobleness of truth, that gave him an elevation of feeling he had hitherto never known.

Rachel deposited Charlie with his aunts, and walked home half annoyed, half amused with what had passed. "That comes of giving advice," she thought. "It never answers, but I did it for Charlie's sake; and as the man has no real feeling, no great harm is done. I wish little Charlie had not been so funny and clever about the 'golly locks,' it made me long to be his mother; but to be sure it would not do to marry poor Mr. Willis on the strength of that one quotation."