“Marcia, I trust you are rested,” said Horace.
“Oh, Horace,” said Nesta, “she has been saying such cruel things.”
“Not at all,” said Marcia. “I am very glad you have come in, father, and I am glad you have come in, Horace. You must listen to me, all of you. I am twenty, and I am my own mistress. My stepmother does not stand in quite the same relation to me as my own mother would have done. She is not as near to me as she is to Ethel, and Molly, and Nesta; but I love her, and am willing, abundantly willing, to take more than my share of nursing her.”
“That’s right, Marcia,” said her father.
“Listen, father. I haven’t said all I mean to say. I will not give the girls absolute liberty at the expense of deserting their mother. I refuse to do so; I have told them that I will look after my stepmother for half of every day, sometimes in the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon; but I will not do more, so Molly or Ethel or Nesta, who is no baby, must share the looking after her with me. You can take this proposal of mine, girls, or leave it. If you take it, well and good; if you leave it I return to Frankfort to-morrow.”
Had a bombshell burst in the midst of that eager, animated group, it could not have caused greater consternation. Marcia, the eldest sister, who had always been somewhat downtrodden, who had always worked very, very hard, who always spared others and toiled herself, had suddenly turned round and dared them to take all her liberty from her.
But even as she spoke her heart sank. It was one thing to resolve and to tell her family so; but quite another thing to get that family to carry out her wishes. Nesta flung herself into her father’s arms and sobbed. Molly and Ethel frowned, and tears rolled down Ethel’s cheeks. But Horace went up to Marcia, and put his hand on her shoulder.
“I do think you are right,” he said. “It is fair enough. The only thing is that you must train them a bit, Marcia, just a bit, for they have not your orderly or sweet and gracious ways.”
“Then you take her part, do you?” cried the younger sisters in tones of different degrees of emotion.
“Yes, I do, and, father, you ought to.”