“I did not like to waken you,” Margaret said, apprehensively. “You must have been very tired, Gavin?”
“I was not sleeping, mother,” he said, slowly. “I was only thinking.”
“Ah, Gavin, you never rise from your loom. It is hardly fair that your hands should be so full of other people’s troubles.”
“They only fill one hand, mother; I carry the people’s joys in the other hand, and that keeps me erect, like a woman between her pan and pitcher. I think the joys have outweighed the sorrows since we came here.”
“It has been all joy to me, Gavin, for you never tell me of the sorrows. An old woman has no right to be so happy.”
“Old woman, mother!” said Gavin. But his indignation was vain. Margaret was an old woman. I made her old before her time.
“As for these terrible troubles,” he went on, “I forget them the moment I enter the garden and see you at your window. And, maybe, I keep some of the joys from you as well as the troubles.”
Words about Babbie leaped to his mouth, but with an effort he restrained them. He must not tell his mother of her until Babbie of her free will had told him all there was to tell.
“I have been a selfish woman, Gavin.”