"Nothing that's useful."
"Then what sort of play do you like?"
"To shoot, to climb, to swim, to chop wood, to drive sheep and to read."
I opened my eyes wide, I suppose, for I never heard of a girl who liked such things. "And you can do these things?" I asked.
"Yes, my father taught me, and my mother said I needed outdoor life to make me strong, and at night my father would read to us, or else my mother would teach me."
"But you may like to spin; Jean does."
"No; I shall hate everything I have to do here; I would rather have died than to have come." As she said this I noticed a singular quality in her voice, though not until afterwards did I analyze it. There was a sort of tremor in certain tones, though tremor is, perhaps, too strong a word, since it was rather the suggestion of a harp-like vibration.—like the faintest echo of a sob.
"I wish I might have died when my mother did," she continued, with rising passion. "Why did God leave me alone in the world with no one to love me?" and the strange child burst into a storm of weeping, and ran out of the room, her face hidden by her arm, her slight body shaken by sobs.
"Isn't she queer, Don?" said Thomas, while Aunt Martha came from the room to inquire what was the matter, followed by my mother and grandmother.
"O, 'twas Ellen," I explained, making as light of the matter as possible; "she was answering our questions, and spoke of her mother, which started her to crying."