“Do you think those girls will keep their compact?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you mean to keep yours if they break it? that the point,” said Angela, and now she leant back against the great clump of fern, and looked at her companion from under the shade of her black hat. Marcia glanced at her.
“I shall do it,” she said.
“It would be somewhat painful for you. Your—your mother has got accustomed to you.”
“She is not my real mother.”
“Ought you to think of that, Marcia? Your real mother doesn’t want you; this mother does.”
“Yes, I know what you mean, but I will not change; I am determined; I will help the girls to do their duty; I will not take their burden from them.”
“But ought they to consider the care of a mother a burden?” said Angela. “I think if I could find my own mother anywhere—”
“Angela, you and they are not made out of the same materials.”