“You do not mean it, dear?”
“I do, Mary; I swear I do. Oh that I could have been so weak as to marry as I did—to be cursed with two such children!”
“You talk so, dear, because you are angry with me,” sighed the girl. “I know you loved poor papa dearly.”
“Pish! You are like him.”
“Yes, mamma, and poor Julian has always been so like you.”
There was silence then in the half-shadowed room, while the mother sat sternly gazing out at the stream that rippled by the cottage, dancing in the sunlight and bathing the roots of the willows that kissed its dimpling, silvery surface. The verdant meadows stretched far away rich in the lush grass and many flowers that dotted them with touches of light. All without looked bright and joyous, as a lark high poised poured forth his lay, which seemed to vibrate in the blue arch of heaven, and then fall in silvery fragments slowly down to earth.
The girl lay crying silently, the tears moistening her soft white pillow, as she gazed piteously from time to time at her mother’s averted face, half hidden from her by the white curtain she held aside to gaze from the window.
“Can you—can you see him coming, mamma?” faltered the girl at last.
“Whom? The doctor?” was the cold response, as the curtain was allowed to fall back in its place. “No, I have not sent for one. Why should we publish our shame?”
“Our shame, mamma?”