“Oh, no, it would be a great pleasure; I always wish we could get more change and variety for her on Sunday.”
“She is very self-denying to spare you to the school.”
“I have often wished to give it up, but she never will let me. She says it is one of the few things we can do, and I see besides that it brings her fresh interests. She knows about all my class, and works for them, and has them to see her; and I am sure it is better for her, though it leaves her more hours alone with Rose.”
“And the Sunday services are too long for her?”
“Not so much that, as that she cannot sit on those narrow benches unless two are put close together so that she can almost lie, and there is not room for her chair in the aisle on a Sunday. It is the greatest deprivation of all.”
“It is so sad, and she is so patient and so energetic,” said Grace, using her favourite monosyllable in peace, out of Rachel’s hearing.
“You would say so, indeed, if you really knew her, or how she has found strength and courage for me through all the terrible sutfering.”
“Then does she suffer so much?”
“Oh, no, not now! That was in the first years.”
“It was not always so.”