There was a touch of scorn in the boy's impatient tone, and his mother bit her lip, and laughed constrainedly:
"Really, Felix! who gave you a bill of sale to Miss Earl? She should consider herself exceedingly fortunate, as she is the first of all your teachers with whom you have not quarrelled most shamefully, even fought and scratched."
"And because she is sweet, and good and pretty, and I love her, you must interfere and take her off to entertain your company. She came here to take care of Hattie and me, and not to go down-stairs to see visitors. She can't go, mamma! I want her myself. You have all the world to talk to, and I have only her. Don't meddle, mamma."
"You are very selfish and ill-tempered, my poor little boy, and I am heartily ashamed of you."
"If I am, it is because—"
"Hush, Felix!"
Edna laid her hand on the pale, curling lips of the cripple, and luckily at this instant Mrs. Andrews was summoned from the room.
Scarcely waiting till the door closed after her, the boy exclaimed passionately:
"Felix! don't call me Felix! That means happy, lucky! and she had no right to give me such a name. I am Infelix! nobody loves me! nobody cares for me, except to pity me, and I would rather be strangled than pitied! I wish I was dead and at rest in Greenwood! I wish somebody would knock my brains out with my crutch! and save me from hobbling through life. Even my mother is ashamed of my deformity! She ought to have treated me as the Spartans did their dwarfs! She ought to have thrown me into the East River before I was a day old! I wish I was dead! Oh! I do! I do!"
"Felix, it is very wicked to—"