would give a little more consideration to her wishes and opinions;
but from this suppressed idea came many sharp and peevish words at
this time, which, apart from their true source, were quite as
unreasonable and perverse as the miller held them to be. Nor is
being completely under the control of another, self-control. It may
be doubted if it can even do much to teach it. The thread of her
passive condition having been, for the time, broken by grief, the
bereaved mother moaned and wailed, and rocked herself, and beat her
breast, and turned fiercely upon all interference, like some poor
beast in anguish.

She had clung to her children with an almost morbid tenderness, in
proportion as she found her worthy husband stern and cold. A hard
husband sometimes makes a soft mother, and it is perhaps upon the
baby of the family that her repressed affections outpoured
themselves most fully. It was so in this case, at any rate. And
the little one had that unearthly beauty which is seen, or imagined,
about children who die young. And the poor woman had suffered and
striven so for it, to have it and to keep it. The more critical
grew its illness, the intenser grew her strength and resolution by
watchfulness, by every means her instinct and experience could
suggest, to fight and win the battle against death. And when all
was vain, the maddening thought tortured her that it might have been
saved.

The miller had made a mistake, and it was a pity that he made
another on the top of it, with the best intentions. He hurried on
the funeral, hoping that when "all was over" the mother would
"settle down."