"Oh, Mother! I wouldn't be unkind to Fräulein for the world."
"I don't believe you would if you thought about it. She certainly is in such sore trouble that she needs all the consideration that her scholars can give her, yet you must have annoyed her greatly this morning."
"I'm afraid Fräulein's used to our not knowing our lessons very well," observed Roger.
"I'm sorry to hear that, but if you know you aren't doing as well as you ought to with your lessons that is the best reason in the world for you to pay the strictest attention while you are in class. Yet Helen says that she and Fanny Shrewsbury were laughing. I'm afraid Fräulein isn't feeling especially content with her work this afternoon."
"Mother, you make me feel like a hound dog," cried Helen. "And I've been talking as if I were so sorry for Fräulein!"
"You are sorry for her as the heroine of a romance, because her betrothed is in the army and she doesn't know where he is or whether he is alive. It sounds like a story in a book. But when you think what that would mean if it were you that had to endure the suffering it wouldn't seem romantic. Suppose Father were fighting in Mexico and we hadn't heard from him for a month—do you think you could throw off your anxiety for a minute? Don't you think you'd have to be careful every instant in school to control yourself? Don't you think it would be pretty hard if some one in school constantly did things that irritated you—didn't know her lessons and then laughed and giggled all through the recitation hour?"
Helen's and Roger's heads were bent.
"Imagine," Mrs. Morton went on, "how you would feel every day when you came home, wondering all the way whether a letter had come; wondering whether, if one had come, it would be from Father or from some one else saying that Father was—wounded."
"Oh, Mother, I can't—" Helen was almost crying.
"You can't bear to think of it; yet—"