I didn't know what she meant. I looked for more, but she wouldn't speak. So I said—
"How soon will mother and I have to go back to Claxton?"
"Do you wish very much to go?" she asked.
"I don't know. Yes," I said. "Claxton is our home." And yet I felt it would be sad, with everything so different.
"Could Claxton be home to you again, I wonder?" says she. "In another house, and without your father?"
"Mother wouldn't like to live anywhere else," I said.
"Yes; she will be content with whatever is decided."
"But when you go home to Littleburgh?"
"I am not going to Littleburgh. I have no home there now," she answered.
I was that startled with her words, I came to a standstill on the pavement.