“Yes, I went there first this morning.” She hesitated, a troubled look in her eyes. Milly drew her closer.
“Poor mother!” she said.
“It is your uncle who needs sympathy, dear, though he will not have it. And I know it is partly my fault, and partly the whole family’s, as well as his. We have all given up to him all our lives, under color of being kind and patient and magnanimous, and all that, when at the bottom we were just afraid to oppose him; and he—suffers.”
“O, Mother, I’m sorry!” cried Milly. “I’ll give up!”
“Now, Cousin Grace, I call that a shame,” broke in Caro. “No matter what you and Milly do, you make a fault and a penance out of it to shield him and hurt yourselves. It isn’t fair. He knows he’s outrageous, and he doesn’t care; and I just think he ought to be hurt, to find out what he’s been doing to other people. If he’s gone, do let Milly enjoy herself, for once. But is he gone, really?”
“He’s going,” said Grace. “I wanted him to stay, as my guest, and not as the master of the house. But he—he was very angry. He is to leave this morning, while I am here. He’s going back to his own house and live there all alone.”
“And a mighty good thing for him,” declared Caro. “When I used to indulge in tantrums like his, Mammy Lil always made me go stay by myself till I was what she called a social creature. I think I’ll go over and see Cousin Jason and tell him about it. I could always come back the second I was willing to be polite, and so can he. Think of Cousin Jason’s emerging a social creature! Butterflies and caterpillars won’t be in it. But if Milly isn’t to be married next week, when do we begin on the trousseau?”
The talk passed into a discussion of clothes, and drifted about that interesting topic till time for them to go home. They found their house empty, except for the servants. Cousin Jason had gone, as he said, without eating again beneath his sister’s roof.
June 16th. I suppose the excitement of Cousin Jason’s deposition was a little too much for me: I’ve been curled up dead-’possum-fashion for a week. Now I’m uncurling again, and showing that, like the ’possum, I’m not so dead as I look. Caro came back, whether or no, and took charge of me. It is a great comfort to have her.