“It was on account of Mr. Danvers.”
“He was always doing some fool thing,—what was this one?”
“He gave me a present.”
“What was it?”
“A ring.”
“Didn’t he give his wife anything?”
“Oh, yes,—a book. He had been to Boston and he thought he would please us so much. It was pitiful. He saw she was annoyed, but he didn’t know what it was about, and went out of the room.”
“And she pitched into you.”
“Yes, she said you would be angry with him for giving me such handsome presents, and I thought what a strange thing for a mother to say; then it came over me like a flash,—‘This woman isn’t my mother.’”
“Did you tell her?”