"I think it does. Philip, my boy, here's a lesson for you, and for all other lazy scapegraces."
Philip shrugged his shoulders, with a laugh. "Papa, I don't see any good in working so hard."
"We are obliged to work, sir," said Frank, candidly. "We have no money, and it is only by education that we can hope to get on. Mamma thinks it may turn out all for the best. She says that boys who expect money very often rely upon it and not upon themselves. She would rather turn us out into the world with our talents cultivated and a will to use them, than with a fortune apiece. There's not a parable in the Bible mamma is fonder of reading to us than that of the ten talents."
"No fortune!" repeated Mr. Glenn in a dreamy tone.
"Not a penny; mamma has to work to keep us," returned Frank, making the avowal as freely as though he had proclaimed that his mother was lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and he one of her pages. Jane had contrived to convince them that in poverty itself there lay no shame or stigma; but a great deal in paltry attempts to conceal it.
"Frank," said Mr. Glenn, "I was thinking that you must possess a fortune in your mother."
"And so we do!" said Frank. "When Philip's note came to me last night, and we were--were----"
"Laughing over it!" suggested Mr. Glenn, helping out Frank's hesitation, and laughing himself.
"Yes, that's it; only I did not like to say it," acknowledged Frank. "But I dare say you know, sir, how most of the college boys write. Mamma said then, how glad we ought to be that she can make time to teach us better, and that we have the resolution to persevere."
"I wish your mother would admit my sons to her class," said Mr. Glenn, half-seriously, half-jokingly. "I would give her any recompense."
"Oh no, she wouldn't," answered Frank impulsively. "I will ask her."
"I should not like such a strict mother," avowed Philip Glenn.
"Strict!" echoed Frank. "Mamma's not strict."
"She must be. She says you shan't come fishing with us to-morrow."
"No, she did not. She said she wished me not to go, and thought I had better not, and then she left it to me."
Philip Glenn stared. "You told me at school this morning that it was decided you were not to come. And now you say Mrs. Halliburton left it to you."