'I will try;' but the tone was hopeless.
'You must begin by plucking up a little spirit, then. Well, good-night.'
'Good-night, Cardie,' was the listless answer, as she suffered him to kiss her cheek. 'It was only Olive's ordinary want of demonstration,' Richard thought, as he turned away, a little relieved by his voluntary confession; 'only one of her cold, tiresome ways.'
Only one of her ways!
Long after Chrissy had fallen into a refreshing sleep, and Mildred had crept softly away to sleepy, wondering Polly, Olive sat at the little round table with her face buried in her arms, both hid in the loosely-dropping hair.
'I could have borne him to have said anything else but this,' she moaned. 'Not feel as they do, not miss her as much, my dear, beautiful mother, who never scolded me, who believed in me always, even when I disappointed her most;—oh, Cardie, Cardie, how could you have found it in your heart to say that!'
CHAPTER VI
CAIN AND ABEL
'There was a little stubborn dame
Whom no authority could tame;
Restive by long indulgence grown,
No will she minded but her own.'—Wilkie.