I was surprised at her manner, but I suppose that she is always fighting with her conscience about right and wrong, so the mere idea makes her aggressive.
"I am not so sure," I told her, trying to turn the whole matter off with a laugh. "I don't think it's very moral to be ill bred. Do you?"
"Why, Father says manners don't matter if the heart is right."
"This is only another way of saying that if the heart is right the manners will be right. If you in your heart consider whether your father would wish you to tell me what he did not say for my ears, you will not be likely to say it."
That sounds rather priggish now it is written down, but I had to stop the child, and I could not be harsh with her. She evidently wanted much to go on with the subject, but I would not hear another word. How the town must be discussing my affairs!
February 5. Mother is certainly growing weaker, and although Dr. Wentworth will not admit to me that she is failing, I am convinced that he thinks so. She has been telling me this afternoon of things which she wishes given to this and that relative or friend.
"It will not make me any more likely to die, Ruth," she said, "and I shall feel more comfortable if I have these things off my mind. I've thought them out, and if you'll put them on paper, then I shall feel perfectly at liberty to forget them if I find it too much trouble to remember."
I put down the things which she told me, trying hard not to let her see how the tears hindered my writing. When I had finished she lay quiet for some time, and then she said,—
"May I say one thing, Ruth, about George?"
She has said nothing to me before except comforting words to show me that she felt for me, and that she knew I could not bear to talk about it.