Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/121

empty, and all the old home was broken up. We had to let the old place, and when I went down there for a day just to see it again, I never felt so miserable in all my life. You often hear people say what a shock it is to go back again in that sort of way, and you read of it in books, but when you realize it yourself———”

“Yes,” said Alice, “I can understand that.” It seemed perfectly natural that he should tell her of his affairs, as if they were old friends meeting again after ten years’ interval. “And your mother?”

“Oh, my mother is as pretty and young as ever. I’ve never seen anyone like her. She lives in London now, and we had a glorious time there with music—just wallowed in it all the season. You know what music means there, don’t you? I must just have missed you, by the bye, last season.”

“London is too delicious if it wasn’t for that ‘eternal want of pence, that vexes public men.’”

“Oh yes, that’s a fact. And we are all hard up in our family now. I have two younger brothers who must be put into professions, and it takes all we can do to get them started. But I expect to get a good billet by-and-by. My uncle Lanetop is a relation of some great guns