"Nonsense!"
"I saw tears in her eyes. Think of Val crying!"
"It's no great affair that one should cry now and then. Perhaps it's just as well that you've come, after all." She fixed a far from hospitable look upon her grandson. "I was about to write you. Leave us awhile, Emmeline." She closed her eyes as the girl went out, as if to summon strength. "I don't approve of the tone of your last letter to Val."
Ethan stared.
"Oh, she reads me parts still. She reads me a great deal. The tone of the later ones, especially the last—"
She shook her head with a weak, slow movement.
"I am sorry you think—"
"We haven't time to waste being sorry; let us be different." With sudden energy she pulled out one page of a letter from under her pillow. "I haven't eyesight to read your shocking writing, my dear—"
"No, no; don't try. I remember what you mean. I won't make fun of the Churchman in politics any more—not in my letters. I apologize to the bishop."