"Oh, they do as well as any," he replied irritably. Though any reference to his deformity annoyed him, there were times when she felt obliged to allude to it as a factor in his career. For good or ill, that clubfoot, like the mark of Jason in her life, had been his destiny. With his unusual gifts and without the sensitive shrinking from crowds which his lameness had developed into a disease, he might have achieved success in any profession that he had chosen. "You stay by the fire," he added, "while I take a turn at the bossing."
She nodded. "Very well, I'll be in the dairy when you are ready for me."
"I'll manage the whole business if you'll let me."
"But I shan't let you." She was smiling as she answered, and she perceived from his face that he was big enough to respect her for her inflexible purpose. While authority was still hers she would cling to it as stubbornly as she had toiled to attain it.
He went out laughing, and she dropped back in her chair to wait until the hour came for her work in the dairy. John Abner was right, of course. One of the exasperating things about men, she reflected, was that they were so often right. It was perfectly true that she could not stay young for ever, and at forty-two, after twenty years of arduous toil, she ought to think of the future and take the beginning of the hill more gradually. Though she was as strong, as vital, as young, in her arteries at least, as she had ever been, she could not, she realized, defend herself from the inevitable wearing down of the years. Her eyes wandered to the mirror in the bureau which had belonged to her mother, and it seemed to her that, sitting there in the ruddy firelight, the magic of youth enveloped her again with a springtime freshness. Her eyes looked so young in the dimness that they bathed her greying hair, her weatherbeaten skin, and her tall, strong figure, which was becoming a little dry, a trifle inelastic, in the celestial blueness of a May morning.
"I wonder if it is because I've missed everything I really wanted that I cannot grow old?" she asked herself with a start.
It was seven o'clock when she returned from the dairy, and John Abner was already in the kitchen demanding his supper.
"The train is certain to be hours late," he said. "There's no use waiting any longer for Father."
"Yes, we might as well have supper. I can cook something for him when he comes."
"I saw Mr. Garlick going over a few minutes ago. His daughter, Molly, went down yesterday with young Mrs. Ellgood to a concert. Mrs. Ellgood has always been crazy about music. Did you ever hear her play on the violin?"