play as well as Nettie if I had time to practice, but mother don't
seem to care anything at all about my music. We might keep a girl
like other people. Father is able to. I think it is too bad."

"Oh, don't Mag! Don't say any more," said Florence. "It makes me
shiver to hear you talk so. You know what it says about honouring
parents. I'm sure something dreadful will happen to you. You will
drop right down dead, maybe, or just think how you would feel if
mother should die after you've talked so. Oh, Maggie," she said
timidly, "if you only were a Christian, now, how it would help you."

"Pho," said Margaret. "Mother is a Christian and it don't help her
one bit."

Then Margaret put her head down on the arm of the lounge and cried.
She had wanted to cry all day, but there was no time.

The door stood partly open between Mrs. Murray's room and that of her
daughters. That ruined fruitcake had accomplished its work, the
severe nervous headache had come and obliged her to go up to her room
and lie down, while the girls supposed her to be still in the
dining-room; so the talk came floating in to her while she lay on her
bed pressing her aching temples. What a revelation was this! Was it
possible that she was the person meant? One daughter blaming her, and
the other excusing her. She almost forgot about her head in this new
pain. The first feeling was one of indignation and wounded pride, but
conscience told her it was all true, that she was a cross, fretful
mother, that she had not made her home a happy one, that she had been
selfish and unsympathetic and her children were getting estranged
from her. But the last few words touched her most of all. "Her