“Yes, yes, child; and while in one way it is hard, if you look at it in a practical light, you will see that it was best for the children. You couldn’t keep them with you and go out as hired help in anybody’s kitchen; and you have no other means of support any more.”
“If I stay here, I cannot have even the poor privilege of caring for them, except when they’re sick. I must get entirely away from their vicinity, or lose my senses altogether.”
“I thought that was what was the matter when you married the fellow, Sally. You certainly had lost your senses then.”
“But love is blind, Squire—till it gets its eyes open; and then it is generally too late to see to any advantage. Little did my dear father think, when he made a will leaving his homestead, his bank account, and all his belongings to me, that he was reducing my dear mother and me to beggary.”
“But that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t married that worthless fellow, Sally.”
“But the if exists, Squire. I married the fellow. It was an awful blunder,—I’ll admit that. But it wasn’t a crime. It should have been no reason for robbing me. And yet this marriage was made the legal pretext for permitting the robbery. Oh, I was so glad when my dear mother died! I couldn’t have shed a tear at her grave if I’d been hung for my seeming heartlessness. Poor mother! I was made an unwilling party to a robbery that beggared her and myself. Then, when I could no longer endure the presence of the robber and his accomplice, and live, I was doubly, yes, trebly robbed, by being deprived of my children.”
The Squire cleared his throat and spoke huskily.
“That will was a sad mistake of your father’s, Sally. He should have left his property to your mother. It was wrong to put her means of livelihood in jeopardy by leaving all to you. He ought to have known you’d marry, and that the property would accrue to your husband.”
“But mother insisted that all should be left to me. She even waived her right of dower, in my interest—as she thought.”
“Well, Sally, you can’t say that I didn’t warn you.”