"Said what?" Fred said, frowning with anxiety; "here, let me light the gas!"
"No, don't!" Mrs. Payton put a restraining hand on her daughter's shoulder; "about—about loving him best. I don't, dear; truly I don't."
"But, Mother!"—Fred put her arms about the soft, loose figure that tumbled into sobs against her—"I didn't know you said it, and if you did, I don't mind it in the least!" She felt her mother's tears on her cheek, and gathered her up against her breast; "Why, Mother! It's all right—really it is. It's all right to love him best—"
"But I don't—I don't! I love you best."
"Why," Fred soothed her, "I didn't even remember you'd said it. You only told me I was like Father—and that did me good."
"No! I never said you were! And it isn't so. You're not—not a bit! My little Freddy!"
Frederica smiled grimly in the darkness, and she let the statement pass; for suddenly something surged up in her breast; something she had never felt in her life; something that was actual pain; she had no name for it, but it made the tears sting in her eyes. "There, dear, there!" she comforted her cowering mother; ... "I understand," she said, brokenly; "I understand!"
It is a wonderful moment, this moment of "understanding." It made Fred draw the foolish gray head down on her young breast, and caress and comfort it, as years ago her own little head had been caressed and kissed. They were both "mothers" at that moment.
So Laura's wedding-day was lived through. And by and by the weeks that followed were lived through. And then the months pushed in between Fred and that night at the camp. She never spoke of Howard and Laura.