A certain little runnel of verse flowed
no more through the pages of "The Firefly," and in a month there
was not the shadow of Tom upon his age. But the print of him was
deep in the heart of Letty, and not shallow in the affection of
Mary; nor were such as these, insignificant records for any one
to leave behind him, as records go. Happy was he to have left
behind him any love, especially such a love as Letty bore him!
For what is the loudest praise of posterity to the quietest love
of one's own generation? For his mother, her memory was mostly in
her temper. She had never understood her wayward child, just
because she had given him her waywardness, and not parted with it
herself, so that between them the two made havoc of love. But she
who gives her child all he desires, in the hope of thus binding
his love to herself, no less than she who thwarts him in
everything, may rest assured of the neglect she has richly
earned. When she heard of his death, she howled and cursed her
fate, and the woman, meaning poor Letty, who had parted her and
her Tom, swearing she would never set eyes upon her, never let
her touch a farthing of Tom's money. She would not hear of paying
his debts until Mary told her she then would, upon which the fear
of public disapprobation wrought for right if not righteousness.
But what was Mary to do now with Letty? She was little more than
a baby yet, not silly from youth, but young from silliness.
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