"If I did, mother, it needn't prevent my coming here for a month or two first. It wouldn't be quite yet certainly,—if at all. And I thought that perhaps, if I am going to settle myself in that way, you'd be glad that we should be altogether again for a little while."
"So I should, Dorothea,—of course. I have never wanted to be divided from my children. Your going away was your own doing, not mine. I'm sure it made me so wretched I didn't know what to do at the time. Only other things have come since, that have pretty nearly put all that out of my mind."
"But you can't think I was wrong to go when I felt it to be right."
"I don't know how that may be," said Mrs. Ray. "If you thought it right to go I suppose you were right to go; but perhaps you shouldn't have had such thoughts."
"Well, mother, we won't go back to that."
"No; we won't, if you please."
"This at any rate is certain, that Rachel, in departing from our usual ways of life, has brought great unhappiness upon herself. I'm afraid she is thinking of this young man now more than she ought to do."
"Of course she is thinking of him. Why should she not think of him?"
"Why, mother! Surely it cannot be good that any girl should think of a man who thinks nothing of her!"
Then Mrs. Ray spoke out,—as perhaps she had never spoken before.