"Yes; and, like yourself, named after your own dear mother."
"Oh, Mrs. Flaxman, and you never told me. Was she grown up like me?"
"She was only six years old when she died, just a month after her father; but the greater grief benumbed me so I scarce realized my second loss until months afterward."
"Is it so terrible, then, to lose one's husband?"
"It depends greatly on the husband."
"The widow Larkum cries constantly after hers, but he was bread-winner, too. A hungry grief must be a double one."
"Did Mr. Winthrop say anything further to you about being out last night?"
"A little," I replied, with scarlet cheeks; "but he will never do so again. I shall not give him cause to reprove me."
"That is the most lady-like course. You are no longer a little girl, or a school-girl either."
I wiped my plates in silence, but my mortification was none the less intense. I realized then, more keenly than ever, that I must preserve the proprieties, and confine myself to the restrictions of polite society. The breezy, unconventional freedom Mrs. Flaxman had for those few months permitted me had been so keenly enjoyed. I fretted uneasily at the forms, and ceremonies of artificial life, while the aboriginal instincts, which every free heart hides away somewhere in its depths, had been permitted too full development.