"You ought to be sure of her," Mrs. Richie said; "her little vanities—why, it is just natural for a girl to want pretty dresses! But to think—Poor little Elizabeth!" She hid her face in her hands; "and poor bad mother," she said, in a whisper.
"Don't pity her! She was not the one to pity. It was Arthur who—" He left the sentence unfinished; his face quivered.
"Oh," she cried, "you are all wrong. She is the one to pity, I don't care how selfish and shallow she was! As for your brother, he just died. What was dying, compared to living? Oh, you don't understand. Poor bad women! You might at least be sorry for them. How can you be so hard?"
"I suppose I am hard," he said, half wonderingly, but very meekly; "when a good woman can pity Dora—that was her name; who am I to judge her? I'll try not to be so hard," he promised.
He had risen. Mrs. Richie tried to speak, but stopped and caught her breath at the bang of the front door.
"It's David!" she said, in a terrified voice. Her face was very pale, so pale that David, coming abruptly into the room, stood still in his tracks, aghast.
"Why, Materna! What's up? Mother, something is the matter!"
"It's my fault, David," Robert Ferguson said, abashed. "I was telling your mother a—a sad story. Mrs. Richie, I didn't realize it would pain you. Your mother is a very kind woman, David; she's been sympathizing with other people's troubles."
David, looking at him resentfully, came and stood beside her, with an aggressively protecting manner. "I don't see why she need bother about other people's troubles. Say, Materna, I—I wouldn't feel badly. Mr. Ferguson, I—you—" he blustered; he was very much perturbed.
The fact was David was not in an amiable humor; Elizabeth had been very queer all the way home. "High and mighty!" David said to himself; treating him as if he were a little boy, and she a young lady! "And I'm seventeen—the idea of her putting on such airs!" And now here was her uncle making his mother low-spirited. "Materna, I wouldn't bother," he comforted her.