"I think I ought to tell you that I'm going away to-morrow."
Mrs. Brent looked up from her work, and her cold gray eyes surveyed Phil with curious scrutiny.
"You are going away!" she replied. "Where are you going?"
"I think I shall go to New York."
"What for?"
"Seek my fortune, as so many have done before me."
"They didn't always find it!" said Mrs. Brent with a cold sneer. "Is there any other reason?"
"Yes; it's chiefly on account of what you told me yesterday. You said that I was dependent upon you."
"So you are."
"And that I wasn't even entitled to the name of Brent."
"Yes, I said it, and it's true."
"Well," said Phil, "I don't want to be dependent upon you. I prefer to earn my own living."
"I am not prepared to say but that you are right.
But do you know what the neighbors will say?"
"What will they say?"
"That I drove you from home."
"It won't be true. I don't pretend to enjoy my home, but I suppose I can stay on here if I like?"
"Yes, you can stay."
"You don't object to my going?"
"No, if it is understood that you go of your own accord."
"I am willing enough to take the blame of it, if there is any blame."
"Very well; get a sheet of note-paper, and write at my direction."
Phil took a sheet of note-paper from his father's desk, and sat down to comply with Mrs. Brent's request.
She dictated as follows:
"I leave home at my own wish, but with the consent of Mrs. Brent, to seek my fortune. It is wholly my own idea, and I hold no one else responsible.
"PHILIP BRENT."
"You may as well keep the name of Brent," said his step-mother, "as you have no other that you know of."
Phil winced at those cold words. It was not pleasant to reflect that this was so, and that he was wholly ignorant of his parentage.
"One thing more," said Mrs. Brent. "It is only eight o'clock. I should like to have you go out and call upon some of those with whom you are most intimate, and tell them that you are leaving home voluntarily."
"I will," answered Phil.
"Perhaps you would prefer to do so to-morrow."
"No; I am going away to-morrow morning."
"Very well."
"Going away to-morrow morning?" repeated Jonas, who entered the room at that moment.
Phil's plan was briefly disclosed.
"Then give me your skates," said Jonas.
"I can't. I've given them to Tommy Kavanagh."
"That's mean. You might have thought of me first," grumbled Jonas.
"I don't know why. Tommy Kavanagh is my friend and you are not."
"Anyway, you can let me have your boat and gun."
"I have sold them."
"That's too bad."
"I don't know why you should expect them. I needed the money they brought me to pay my expenses till I get work."
"I will pay your expenses to New York if you wish," said Mrs. Brent.
"Thank you; but I shall have money enough," answered Phil, who shrank from receiving any favor at the hands of Mrs. Brent.
"As you please, but you will do me the justice to remember that I offered it."
"Thank you. I shall not forget it."
That evening, just before going to bed, Mrs.
Brent opened a trunk and drew from it a folded paper.
She read as follows--for it was her husband's will:
"To the boy generally known as Philip Brent, and supposed, though incorrectly, to be my son, I bequeath the sum of five thousand dollars, and direct the same to be paid over to any one whom he may select as guardian, to hold in trust for him till he attains the age of twenty-one."
"He need never know of this," said Mrs. Brent to herself in a low tone. "I will save it for Jonas."
She held the paper a moment, as if undecided whether to destroy it, but finally put it carefully back in the secret hiding-place from which she had taken it.
"He is leaving home of his own accord," she whispered. "Henceforth he will probably keep away. That suits me well. but no one can say I drove him to it."
