'I don't want to be made anything of!' she said pettishly. 'Wilmet told me you wanted to talk to me. I suppose that meant she ordered you! So now you've done it, let me go.'
'My dear Angel, don't you see that I am just as anxious about you as Wilmet can be? and when there is plainly something amiss—'
'Oh, it's old Ful and Fen's character of me, then?'
'It is, Angela. Perhaps it does seem taking an unfair advantage of you to catch you now; but you see I so seldom get a chance of a talk with any one; and I must do the best I can for you, you poor little ones, who, I'm afraid, haven't even the faintest recollection of our father and mother to help you.'
'I remember mamma, but after she was ill,' said Angela, probably trying not to be softened. 'But I don't think that has much to do with it. You and Wilmet mind us as much, or more, than most people's born parents. Yes, Wilmet worrits twice as much as any rational mother does.'
'That's the very thing, Angel; parents can do the thing without worrying.'
'No, I didn't say you did,' said Angela; 'you never did till this minute, and now you are druv to it;' and she regarded him with a certain fellow-feeling so comical, that she nearly made him laugh, though he felt sad enough.
'Have I neglected you then, Angel?'
'Oh no; I think you do just as well as most fathers. You keep us all going,' said Angela, considering; 'and you look after us and set us a good example, as people say; and isn't that all that fathers have to do?'
'My poor little sister! you just show that I cannot be really like a father to you.'