"I want to hear you say it."
"Well, I'm not going to."
"I love you. I ache with loving you. I love you so much that it hurts me to say it."
"Why do you do it, then?"
"Because it hurts me more not to. Just once. 'I love you.' Just a weeny once."
"You're going to be like your father, tease, tease, tease, all day long, till I'm worn out."
"I'm not going to be like Papa. I don't tease. It's you that's teasing.
How'm I to know you love me if you won't say it?"
Mamma said, "Can't you see what I'm doing?"
"No."
She was not interested in the thin white stuff and the lace—Mamma's needle-work.