To poor Annie it was a terrible thought that she should thus have come
between mother and son; but she remembered that she had read of mothers
who without cause had even hated their own flesh, and how much the more
might not she who knew her ambitions and designs so utterly opposed to
the desires of her son?
And thereupon all at once awoke in Annie the motherhood that lies
deepest of all in the heart of every good woman, making her know in
herself that, his mother having forsaken him, she had no choice but take
him up and be to him henceforward both wife and mother. What remains of
my story will perhaps serve to show how far she succeeded in fulfilling
this her vow.
At last Mr. Macintosh saw that things could not thus continue, and that
he had better accept an offer made him some time before by a London
correspondent--to take Hector into his banking-house and give him the
opportunity of widening his experience and knowledge of business; and
Hector, on his part, was eager to accept the proposal. The salary
offered for his services was certainly not a very liberal one, but the
chief attraction was that the hours were even shorter than they had been
with his father, and would yet enlarge his liberty of an evening.
Hector's delights, as we have seen, had always lain in literature, and
in that direction the labor in him naturally sought an outlet. Now there
seemed a promise of his being able to pursue it yet more devotedly than
before: who could tell but he might ere long produce something that
people might care to read? Some publisher might even care to put it in
print, and people might care to buy it! That would start him in a more
genuine way of living, and he might the sooner be able to marry
Annie--an aspiration surely legitimate and not too ambitious.
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