Desk and Debit by Oliver Optic

My father was gloomy and sad, and I disliked to say anything more on the painful topic; but I was so thoroughly in earnest that I could not postpone some decided action. It seemed criminal to permit such a matter to rest any longer, and I wondered how I had been able to keep quiet two years with the consciousness that I had a mother whom I had seen only with my baby eyes. Something seemed to reproach me for my coldness and neglect, though in fact I had done all I could to solve the difficulty. My grandfather appeared to be suspicious, and even heartless; but I knew that my mother was not so.

Far away she was wandering in foreign lands, and though surrounded by the gayest of friends, and surfeited in luxury, I could not help thinking that now and then, in the still watches of the night; her motherly heart recurred to the little one she had lost. What a joy it would be to her to know that her son, her lost one, was still alive! If in her maternal heart she had ever pictured that babe as becoming a stalwart young man, I felt that I could already realize her hope. If she had ever anticipated the time when her first-born, as his beard began to grow, would lavish upon her all the tenderness which a mother has a right to claim, I felt that I could amply reward her desire, and realize her ambition.