“Poor Marcia!” cried Molly.
“Yes, poor Marcia. But where’s Ethel; why doesn’t she come when her mother sends for her? Am I indeed openly defied in my own house?”
“Oh, mother,” said Molly, in some trepidation, “it isn’t us, it is Marcia.”
“It’s much more you, you are my children—Marcia isn’t. I am your mother. Live as long as you may you will never be able to get a second mother.”
Here Mrs Aldworth burst into sobs herself. But Nesta was an adept at knowing how to manage the invalid when such scenes came on.
“As though we wanted to,” she said. “Darling little mother; sweet, pretty little mother.”
She knelt by the sofa, she put her soft arms round her mother’s poor tired neck, she laid her soft, cool cheek against the hot one, she looked with her blue eyes into the eyes from which tears were streaming.
“You know, mother, that we just worship you.”
“But, of course, mother, it’s only natural,” said Molly, “that we should sometimes want to have a little fresh air.”
“It is just as true,” continued Nesta, “that one cannot be young twice, as that one cannot have a real ownest mother over again.”