“I think there is very little difference,” said her Aunt Marion. “I am not your stepmother but at the same time I am not your own mother, and I am not conscious of loving you any less than I love Ethel Brown. You are both my dear girls.”
“I love Father but I do think Father would be mean if he gave me a stepmother,” said Ethel Blue.
“But, wouldn’t you be mean if you objected to his having the happiness of a household of his own, after all these years when he has not had one?” returned Mrs. Morton promptly. “Your father has lived a lonely life for many years, and if such a thing should happen as his deciding to marry again, I can’t think that my little Ethel Blue would be so selfish as to make him unhappy—or even uncomfortable—about it.”
This was a new idea for Ethel Blue and she snuggled down under her covers and turned her head away to think about it.
Her aunt left her alone and the room was quiet except for the noise made by Dicky’s little hands, as he turned the pages of a picture book.
It was almost dark when Mrs. Morton came back with Mary, each of them bearing a tray with the supper for one of the invalids.
“I must say,” laughed Mrs. Morton, as she entered the hospital, “these are pretty hearty meals for people who call themselves ill.”
“My mind isn’t ill,” said Ethel Blue; “it’s just these bruises that hurt me,” and Dicky understood what she meant, for he told Mary, who was arranging his pillows, that his “black and blue thspotth were awful thore,” but that he was going to get up in the morning.
As Mrs. Morton leaned over Ethel Blue’s bed, the young girl put an arm around her aunt’s neck and drew her down to her.
“I’ve made up my mind not to be piggy if anything like that does happen,” she said, hesitatingly. “Do you know that it is going to happen?”