If I can help you or
yours, be assured I will.
The Duchess. Thankee, miss. You see, thar's no one the boy has
any claim on but me, and I ain't the proper person to bring him up.
I did allow to send him to 'Frisco, last year; but when I heerd
talk that a schoolma'am was comin' up, and you did, and he sorter
tuk to ye natril from the first, I guess I did well to keep him
yer. For, oh, miss, he loves ye so much; and, if you could hear
him talk in his purty way, ye wouldn't refuse him anything.
Miss Mary (with fatigued politeness, and increasing impatience). I
see, I see: pray go on.
The Duchess (with quiet persistency). It's natril he should take
to ye, miss; for his father, when I first knowed him, miss, was a
gentleman like yourself; and the boy must forget me sooner or
later--and I ain't goin' to cry about THAT.
Miss Mary (impatiently). Pray tell me how I can serve you.
The Duchess. Yes, miss; you see, I came to ask you to take my
Tommy,--God bless him for the sweetest, bestest boy that lives!--to
take him with you. I've money plenty; and it's all yours and his.
Put him in some good school, whar ye kin go and see, and sorter
help him to--forget---his mother. Do with him what you like. The
worst you can do will be kindness to what he would learn with me.
You will: I know you will; won't you? You will make him as pure
and as good as yourself; and when he has grown up, and is a
gentleman, you will tell him his father's name,--the name that
hasn't passed my lips for years,--the name of Alexander Morton.
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