Gathered In by Catherine Helen Spence — Read

If Mrs. Oswald had any warm or dominant feeling at all, it was, as we have before said, the maternal, and when her son James kept away month after month with the Ellertons, she first felt a little surprised, then a little annoyed, and lastly a little uneasy. She did not miss his kindly offices, for Jim performed none, and Kenneth was her messenger to Castlehurst to discharge her commissions, her amanuensis when she wanted a letter or note written, and her counsellor in those matters of daily routine in which she liked to go through the form of asking advice. But she missed the sight of her own boy, and her talk about the things he had done, the things he could do, and the things he did not think it worth his while to do.

At first she was glad to think that Mrs. Ellerton's influence must have waned, because he did not return when he thought she was dying, and still more positive proof was afforded by his not hastening back when he heard she was recovering. Jim might do far better than hanging by a married woman's apron-string, and might easily get a rich wife, either in the other colonies or in Victoria itself, but when the absence was prolonged, when the New Zealand and San Francisco trip was suddenly decided on, and no opportunity given of countermanding it even by telegram, she grew, not so restlessly uneasy as her husband, but for her, decidedly discomposed.