of occult influences, that his confidence in a stranger was unwarranted.
He would have told you that his "psychic instincts" never played
him false, although really they were traitors from their astral cradles
to their astral graves.

He said in a hesitating way: "You must excuse me being kinder dull;
I've got some serious business on my mind and I can't help
thinking of it."

"Is that so? Well, I know how that is; I have often stayed awake
nights worrying about things. Lest I shouldn't suit and all that--
especially after mother took sick."

"I s'pose you had to give up and nurse her then?"

"That was what Ebenezer and Ralph were for having me do; but mother--
my mother always had so much sense--mother says, 'No, Alma, you've got
a good place and a chance in life, you sha'n't give it up.
We'll hire a girl. I ain't never lonesome except evenings,
and then you will be home. I should jest want to die,'
she says, 'if I thought I kept you in a kind of prison like by
my being sick--now, just when you are getting on so well.'
There never WAS a woman like my mother!" Her voice shook a little,
and Nelson asked gently:

"Ain't your mother living now?"

"No, she died last year." She added, after a little silence,
"I somehow can't get used to being lonesome."