"
"Thank you," I said, "I think we have discussed Dr. Elliott quite
enough already. I cannot say that he has elevated himself in my
opinion by making you take up the cudgels in his defence."
"You do him injustice, when you say that," she cried. "His sister,
the only person to whom he confided the state of things, begged me to
find out, if I could, whether you had any other attachment, and if
her brother's case was quite hopeless. But I am sorry I undertook the
task as it has annoyed you so much."
I came away a good deal ruffled. When I got home mother said she was
glad I had been out at last for a little recreation, and that she
wished I did not confine myself so to the children. I said that I did
not confine myself more than Aunty did.
"But that is different," mother objected. "She is their own mother,
and love helps her to bear her burden."
"So it does me," I returned. "I love the children exactly as if they
were my own."
That," she said, "is impossible."
"I certainly do," I persisted.
Mother would not dispute with me, though I wished she would.
A mother," she went on, "receives her children one at a time, and
gradually adjusts herself to gradually increasing burdens. But you
take a whole houseful upon you at once, and I am sure it is too much
for you. You do not look or act like yourself."
"It isn't the children," I said.
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