Gay sighed. She had long ago found that Trotting, like marriage, "takes a lot of kidding," and the less she enjoyed it, the more she "kidded," but not to herself, being by now very sick of the fad that she had so light-heartedly taken up.
The horses themselves, the actual racing part, still appealed to her; she thought their action the prettiest possible sight, and never lost her pleasure in seeing them go—loved a close finish—it was the surroundings that disgusted her.
"Anyway, my fad is not dangerous to life—like Chris's," she said, then suddenly remembered the ugly fall she had witnessed from the tiny perch on Rensslaer's borrowed sulky, and the life-long injury to the back that ensued.
"Are you not both a little selfish, my dear?" said Lavinia. "Laddie, (her pet-name for Chris) won't give up his racing, nor you your trotting—but there is more reason in his asking the sacrifice from you, than your demanding it from him. His mother did not."
"Oh!" cried Gay passionately, "knowing what it must have cost her, how could he do it?"
"I believe there is a special Heaven to which good sons go," said Lavinia, softly putting the question by. "I don't say good mothers—that's natural—but to be a perfect son, and yet to be a man at all points—a man of the world even—like Chris—that's rare—rare and most beautiful."
Then Lavinia confided to Gay with a blush that the only reason she ever regretted not having married—and at times she regretted it intensely—was because she wanted a son—a son like Chris.
"You and his mother were great friends," said Gay very gently.
"Yes—if either of them could have any real friend but each other. They made the most delightful pair. Whenever you met them—and they were never apart except when he was racing—they were having no end of a good time, and cutting jokes together—what one said, the other thought, and it was always amusing. I remember her talking one day to Chris about something she would do 'when she was old and respectable,' and he said, 'you'll never be old, and you'll never be respectable,' and they both roared—it was a treat to see them together."
"He will never think any other woman fit to tie her shoe-string," said Gay.