"Teach music!"
"No. I don't know music. But I might teach something I do know. Or I could—rip," she said, with an odd smile, remembering something she had said one day so long ago; the day the news came up to Z—— from Uncle Oldways. "And I might make out to put together for other people, and for a real business. I never cared to do it just for myself."
"It is perfectly absurd," said Mrs Ledwith. "You couldn't be left to take care of yourself. And if you could, how it would look! No; of course you must go with us."
"But do you care?"
"Why, if there were any proper way, and if you really hate so to go,—but there isn't," said Mrs. Ledwith, not very grammatically or connectedly.
"She doesn't care," said Desire to herself, after her mother had left her, turning her face to the pillow, upon which two tears ran slowly down. "And that is my fault, too, I suppose. I have never been anything!"
Lying there, she made up her mind to one thing. She would get Uncle Titus to come, and she would talk to him.
"He won't encourage me in any notions," she said to herself. "And I mean now, if I can find it out, to do the thing God means; and then I suppose,—I believe,—the snarl will begin to unwind."
Meanwhile, Luclarion, when she had set a nice little bowl of tea-muffins to rise, and had brought up a fresh pitcher of ice-water into Desire's room, put on her bonnet and went over to Aspen Street for an hour.
Down in the kitchen, at Mrs. Ripwinkley's, they were having a nice time.