"Why, Mary?" I said, for the first time in my life suspecting her of the tricks which we afterward came to know were a part of her.
"Because my oldest sister was killed by the railroad right at the station at Clovertown, and I was the one to take her away!"
For about the ten thousandth time Mary held the trump. I felt crushed. I could fairly picture the scene, and I knew that no one could face such harrowing memories. As I gazed at her and she saw I was touched, tears began to gather in her eyes, brim over and run down her pink cheeks. I felt fairly faint and sick to think of parting with Mary.
Then something told me to probe the matter.
"When was your sister killed, Mary?" I said.
"Just twenty-two years ago come Washington's Birthday, Missis dear," whimpered Mary, with her apron at her eye.
I began to laugh heartlessly.
"And wasn't that the sister you fought with and hated—the one you have told me a dozen times you were glad to know was dead?" I went on.
Mary nodded, rather sheepishly. I saw she was weakening, so I became firm.
"Now, Mary," I said, and it was the first time I ever had spoken sternly to her, "put that apron down, and don't let me hear another word about your not going to Clovertown. Of course you are going! Any grief, no matter what, could be cured in twenty-two years,—let alone a grief which never was a grief. And you did not see her after she was dead—you told me you wouldn't go. And what made you the maddest was having to pay the funeral expenses when she had a husband who could have paid them if he would only work. So now, you can just stop those onion tears," I said, marching haughtily toward the door, followed somewhat sheepishly by the Angel, who longed to turn back and mitigate my sternness.