'Yes, Harry.'
'I thought—that—that—'
'What, darling?'
'That if you would go out to walk yourself sometimes, and take us with you, Charley and me, that we shouldn't be so different from everybody else, and it wouldn't be quite so lonesome here.'
A long pause followed—a frightened pause on Harry's part. Venturing, after a little while, to look into his mother's face, its sadness, unmixed with anger reassured him, and he proceeded:
'That was the lady who sent you the flower. She lives in a little white house just across the road. One day, when Betty took me out for a walk, I ran away and went there; and I have been there a good many times since. It's a little house, ma, a very little house. There are no bright pictures or beautiful carpets in it; but they are never lonesome there. She is as kind to her little boy every day as you are to me now. It's a long time, ma, since you kissed me and held me on your lap, and acted as if you loved me! Oh, mamma!' He laid the pale cheek, wet with grateful tears, close against her own. 'Why a'n't you good to me always? I love you now, but I don't love you always; I can't love you always, ma. That day when you frightened me so, when you pulled my hair, threw me down on the floor, and whipped me till the blood ran, I didn't like you for a long time then, you hurt me so.'
The grief of the wretched mother burst forth anew in sobs and tears.
'Oh, Harry! oh, my poor, poor child! Did ma do that?'
'Don't cry, ma, oh, don't cry; I don't think you meant to do it. There is something that changes you, that makes you cross and strange. And ma'—the timid voice sank away to a low, frightened whisper, broken and tremulous with tears.
'Yes, dearest.'