"Your mother don't come to see me?" she said at length.
Archie reddened somewhat. "I wish she would, Mrs. Dunn. I've tried my best. I can't get her to come."
"Don't she want to know us?"
Archie said "No," involuntarily. Then it struck him that perhaps Susan might feel conscientiously bound to carry out Mrs. Stuart's wish, and might cease to encourage his calling at Woodbine Cottage. "It doesn't mean anything," he added in some haste. "Mother's got her own notions, you see; and if she's said a thing, she sticks to it like a leech. She's got her friends, and I've got mine. We pull along pretty well together. Sometimes she's angry, and won't speak to me,—like to-day. But it's not worth bothering about. She's always sure to come round after a while."
"Has she been vexed to-day?" asked Susan, with a look of trouble and pity.
"Oh, it's her way, you know," Archie said, assuming a careless air. "She don't mean anything by it, and I don't take it for more than it's worth. She wouldn't say a word to me at dinner, so I just walked off and left her alone. Oh, she'll come round."
Susan was evidently distressed. "I wouldn't," she said in an undertone,—"I wouldn't do that,—not again."
"But I couldn't sit it out. Nobody could," protested Archie.
"She didn't mean anything by it. You say that yourself," pleaded Susan. "And she's your mother, and she's been a good mother to you,—hasn't she? I wouldn't leave her to sit alone, Archie,—may I call you Archie?"
"Yes, do, please," put in Archie.