Mother and Son

Norris was looking at Mrs. Percival with a kind of wondering admiration
which the son saw with a touch of pity. Poor old Norris! It must have
been tough to grow up without a home. As for this fragrant type of
femininity, young Percival took it for granted--at least in the women
that belong to a man; and the other women hardly count.

Everything made Dick feel very tender toward his past, very well
satisfied with his present, very secure about his future. All would be
good. That was the natural order of the universe. He had always found it
easy to do things and to be a good deal of a personage.

He stared up silently at the space above the mantel where hung a
portrait that gazed back at him, with features pale in the fading light.
Singularly alike were the boyish face that looked up and the boyish face
that looked down, though the painted Percival, a little idealistic about
the eyes, wholly firm about the mouth, appeared the more determined of
the two. Perhaps this came from the shoulder-straps, the blue uniform,
and the military squareness of the shoulders.

"Yes, you are like him, Dick." Mrs. Percival spoke to his thoughts. The
boy looked up startled.

"Am I?" he asked. "I wish I might be. I wish I might be half so much of
a man."

"And I hope you will be more--no, not that. He was my all. I can hardly
wish you to be more, but I hope you will do more. At least you don't
have a drag on you from the beginning, as he had. Has Dick told you the
story, Ellery?" She turned with a gentle smile toward the other man.
"You see I can't help calling you Ellery. Dick's letters have made you
partly mine already. We are not strangers at all."