"Aunt Eurie is cool, as usual," he remarked. "They can all save their time by planning for somebody else, can't they? Of course I am going to take you with me, mommie. Do they think I would leave you in this big house alone, or let you go travelling without me!"
It was all so easy to arrange after that. It sounded so different from the wording in those letters when Erskine himself replied to them.
"I am very grateful for your thoughtful kindness about my mother, but I am going to take her with me; I had not a thought of doing otherwise. I should not be comfortable to have her away from my care in winter, even though she were with you. I have so long made her first in my thoughts and look upon her so entirely as my father's precious charge to me, that no other plan is to be thought of. I shall find pleasant rooms for her, and I think she will enjoy the change."
Ruth smiled proudly as she made her verbal explanations. "Thank you very much, but Erskine says I am to go with him; he cannot think of trusting me to myself; he has taken care of me for a long time, you know." There was not a thought of sarcasm in this suggestion. She knew that the assumption of authority sat well on her handsome son who could look down on her from his splendid height; it seemed quite in keeping with his appearance and character that he was going to take his mother with him in order to take care of her.
The scheme had worked well. He "took" his mother and took excellent care of her, and incidentally she did much, of course, for his comfort, and they were happy. Early in his college career she had sometimes overheard explanations like this:--
"No, boys, I can't join you to-night. You see, I have my mother with me and I feel bound to give her what time I can spare. It will never do to have her feel lonely and deserted after bringing her away out here among strangers, on purpose to take care of her."
It was all very pleasant. But she had learned something from those letters and that volume of advice. She tried steadily not to dominate her son; indeed, so far as a carefully-watched-over mother could, she effaced herself, or tried to. Erskine had no thought of such a thing, and was openly and serenely happy in his mother's society.