So in my boyhood she would expound
the matter, with hearthbrush in one hand and a glove full
of cinders in the other, while I would sit swinging my
knickerbockered legs, swelling with pride until my
waistcoat was as tight as a sausage skin, as I
contemplated the gulf which separated me from all other
little boys who swang their legs upon tables. To this
day if I chance to do anything of which she strongly
approves, the dear heart can say no more than that I am
a thorough Packenham; while if I fall away from the
straight path, she says with a sigh that there are points
in which I take after the Munros.
She is broad-minded and intensely practical in her
ordinary moods, though open to attacks of romance. I can
recollect her coming to see me at a junction through
which my train passed, with a six months' absence on
either side of the incident. We had five minutes'
conversation, my head out of the carriage window. "Wear
flannel next your skin, my dear boy, and never believe in
eternal punishment," was her last item of advice as we
rolled out of the station. Then to finish her
portrait I need not tell you, who have seen her, that she
is young-looking and comely to be the mother of about
thirty-five feet of humanity. She was in the railway
carriage and I on the platform the other day. "Your
husband had better get in or we'll go without him," said
the guard. As we went off, the mother was fumbling
furiously in her pocket, and I know that she was looking
for a shilling.
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