Page 86 - sons-and-lovers

dress ball. He was to be a Highlander. There was a dress
he could hire, which one of his friends had had, and which
fitted him perfectly. The Highland suit came home. Mrs.
Morel received it coldly and would not unpack it.
‘My suit come?’ cried William.
‘There’s a parcel in the front room.’
He rushed in and cut the string.
‘How do you fancy your son in this!’ he said, enraptured,
showing her the suit.
‘You know I don’t want to fancy you in it.’
On the evening of the dance, when he had come home to
dress, Mrs. Morel put on her coat and bonnet.
‘Aren’t you going to stop and see me, mother?’ he asked.
‘No; I don’t want to see you,’ she replied.
She was rather pale, and her face was closed and hard.
She was afraid of her son’s going the same way as his father.
He hesitated a moment, and his heart stood still with anxi-
ety. Then he caught sight of the Highland bonnet with its
ribbons. He picked it up gleefully, forgetting her. She went
out.
When he was nineteen he suddenly left the Co-op. office
and got a situation in Nottingham. In his new place he had
thirty shillings a week instead of eighteen. This was indeed
a rise. His mother and his father were brimmed up with
pride. Everybody praised William. It seemed he was going
to get on rapidly. Mrs. Morel hoped, with his aid, to help
her younger sons. Annie was now studying to be a teacher.
Paul, also very clever, was getting on well, having lessons in
French and German from his godfather, the clergyman who