You'll excuse me, Mary, won't you?--
a domineering brute!"
"And to think I once envied her the match!" she went on meditatively,
removing her bonnet and substituting a kind of nightcap intended to keep
her hair free from dust. "Lauks, Mary, it's a good thing fate doesn't
always take us at our word. We don't know which side our bread's
buttered on, and that's the truth. Why, my dear, I wouldn't exchange my
old boy for all the Honourables in creation!"
They were in time to take leave of Jinny lying white as her pillows
behind the red rep hangings of the bed. The bony parts of her face had
sprung into prominence, her large soft eyes fallen in. John, stalking
solemnly and noiselessly in a long black coat, himself led the two women
to the bedroom, where he left them; they sat down one on each side of
the great fourposter. Jinny hardly glanced at her sister: it was Mary
she wanted, Mary's hand she fumbled for while she told her trouble.
"It's the children, Mary," she whispered. "I can't die happy because of
the children. John doesn't understand them." Jinny's whole existence was
bound up in the three little ones she had brought into the world.
"Dearest Jinny, don't fret. I'll look after them for you, and take care
of them," promised Mary wiping away her tears.
"I thought so," said the dying woman, relieved, but without gratitude:
it seemed but natural to her, who was called upon to give up everything,
that those remaining should make sacrifices.
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