Diana saw that something was wrong, but knew also that if she were to find it out it would be by indirect ways.
"May I go into the pantry and get some milk? I've been a good while from home, and I'm hungry."
"Go along," said her mother ungraciously. "I should think likely, if
you are hungry, your baby is too. That's a new way of doing things.
'Twarn't ever my way. A woman that's got a baby ought to attend to it.
An' if she don't, her husband ought to make her."
"I've not been gone so long as all that comes to," said Diana; and she went into the pantry, her old domain. The pans of milk looked friendly at her; the sweet clean smell of cream carried her back—it seemed ages—to a time when she was as sweet and clean. "Yet it is not my fault,"—she said to herself,—"it is her's—all her's." She snatched a piece of bread and a glass of milk, and swallowed it hastily. Then, as she came out, she saw that one of her mother's hands lay bandaged up in her lap under the table.
"Mother, what's the matter with your hand?"
"O, not much."
"But what? It's all tied up. Have you burned it?"
"No."
"What then? Cut yourself?"
"I should like to know how I should go to work to cut my right hand!
Don't make a fuss about nothing, Diana. It's only scalded."