"Julian, dear? Your mother?"
"I can't help it. She hasn't been very much like a mother to me."
"You should not say that, dear. She loves you very much; and all people do not love in the same way."
"Oh, it isn't that," said the boy, as if in desperation. "I know she loves me, but—but——" And there he broke down in a passion of tears and sobs, amidst which Janetta could distinguish only a few words, such as "Suzanne said"—"father"—"make me wicked too."
"Do you mean," said Janetta, more shocked than she liked to show, "that you think your father wicked?"
"Oh, no, no! Suzanne said mother was not good. Not father."
"But, my dear boy, you must not say that your mother is not good. You have no reason to say so, and it is a terrible thing to say."
"She was unkind to father—and to me, too," Julian burst forth. "And she struck you; she is wicked and unkind, and I don't love her. And Suzanne said she would make me wicked, too, and that I was just like her; and I don't want—to—be—wicked."
"Nobody can make you wicked if you are certain that you want to be good," said Janetta, gravely; "and it was very wrong of Suzanne to say anything that could make you think evil of your mother."
"Isn't she naughty, then?" Julian asked in a bewildered tone.