"Never knew your mother! it must have been--have you never felt the need
of her?"
"Oh, no! I was better without one," said he, quite provoked at his
landlady's pertinacity. He turned about, and threw himself into his
chair. The woman shrank back beyond the threshold.
"Good-day, sir, and thank you," she said. But Bressant could not be
expected to hear the low, timid tone in which she spoke. Seeing that he
made no response, she softly closed the door.
She went along the dark entry to her own room. On a little table in one
corner stood an old-fashioned desk. She opened it, and, unlocking an
inner drawer, took therefrom a small morocco case, lined with red
velvet, and containing a daguerreotype much faded by age. She studied it
long and earnestly, but seemingly without any very satisfactory result.
"But how can I expect it?" murmured she. "So long ago as this was
taken! so sickly and unformed as he was then! But, oh! did they think I
could be blind to that face, and form, and expression! and there is none
other but he, now; the father is dead. Dead! Well, may God forgive him
all the evil of his life! I'm sure I do. But what will this turn out to
be, I wonder--a curse or a blessing? I must wait--it isn't for me to
speak; I must wait, and the end may be happy, after all."