On the present occasion, she
was engaged as usual, and Victor looked at her work and praised it,
according to his custom.
"What is it for, mother?" he asked.
"An altar-cloth," she replied. "I cannot give money, you know, Victor,
and so I am glad to give my work."
The young man's dark eyes flashed, as he replied;--
"True, mother, but the time will come--it is not far off now--when you
and I shall both be set free from poverty, when we shall once more take
our place in our own rank--when we shall be what the Champfontaines
were, and do as the Champfontaines did--when this hateful English name
shall be thrown aside, and this squalid English home abandoned, and the
past restored to us, we to the past." He rose as he spoke, and walked
about the room. A faint flush brightened his sallow face, an unwonted
light glittered in his deep-set eyes. His mother continued to ply her
needle, with downcast eyes, and a face which showed no sign of sympathy
with her son's enthusiasm.
"Industry and talent are good, my Victor," she said, "and they bring
comfort, they bring _le bienetre_ in their train; but I do not think
all the industry and talent you can display as a surgeon in London will
ever enable you to restore the dignity and emulate the wealth of the
old Champfontaines."
Victor Carrington glanced at his mother almost angrily, and for an
instant felt the impulse rise within him which prompted him to tell her
that it was not only by the employment of means so tame and common-
place that he designed to realize the cherished vision of his ambition.
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