"No. It ain't true."
"O mother! What isn't true?"
"That. There is a difference between things, and there is no use trying to make out they're all alike. Sour isn't sweet, and hard ain't soft. What's the use of talking as if it was? I always like to look at things just as they are."
"But, mother!"—
"Now, don't talk, Dolly, but just tell me. What is the good of my getting sick just now? just now, when you ought to be going into company? And we have got to give up our house, and you and I go and bury ourselves down in some out-of-the-way place, and your father get along as he can; and how we shall get along without him to manage, I am sure I don't know."
"He will run down to see us often, mother."
"The master's eye wants to be all the while on the spot, if anything is to keep straight."
"But this is such a little spot; I think my eye can manage it."
"Then how are you going to take care of me?—if you are overseeing the place. And I don't believe my nerves are going to stand it, all alone down there. It'll be lonely. I'd rather hear the carts rattle. It's dreadful, to hear nothing."
"Well, we will try how it goes, mother; and if it does not go well, we will try somewhere else."