The poor woman was greatly distressed.

This young fellow, I thought, favours his mother in features, but mentally he is perhaps more like his father.

Being a smoker myself I ventured to put in a word for him.

They were distressing themselves too much, I told her; smoking in moderation was not only harmless, especially to those who worked out of doors, but it was a well-nigh universal habit, and many leading men in the religious world, both churchmen and dissenters, were known to be smokers.
Her answer, which came quickly enough, was that they did not regard the practice of smoking as in itself bad, but they knew that in some circumstances it was inexpedient; and in the case of her son they were troubled at the thought of what smoking would ultimately lead to.
People, she continued, did not care to smoke, any more than they did to eat and drink, in solitude.

It was a social habit, and it was inevitable that her boy should look for others to keep him company in smoking.
There would be no harm in that in the summer-time when young people like to keep out of doors until bedtime; but during the long winter evenings he would have to look for his companions in the parlour of the public-house.