"I don't eat flowers," Mrs. Maitland said grimly.

"I don't eat papers," Blair said, under his breath; and his
mother looked at him helplessly. How is one to reply to a child
of eight who makes remarks of this kind? Mrs. Maitland did not
know; it was one of the many things she did not know in relation
to her son; for at that time she loved him with her mind rather
than her body, so she had none of those soft intuitions and
persuasions of the flesh which instruct most mothers. In her
perplexity she expressed the sarcastic anger one might vent upon
an equal under the same circumstances:

"You'd eat nothing at all, young man, let me tell you, if it
wasn't for the 'papers,' as you call 'em, in this house!" But it
was no wonder that Blair called it ugly--the house, the orchard,
the Works--even his mother, in her rusty black alpaca dress,
sitting at her desk in the big, dingy dining-room, driving her
body and soul, and the bodies and souls of her workmen--all for
the sake of the little, shrinking boy, who wanted a bunch of
flowers on the table. Poor mother! Poor son! And poor little
proper, perplexed half-sister, looking on, and trying to make
peace. Nannie's perplexities had begun very far back. Of course
she was too young when her father married his second wife to
puzzle over that; but if she did not, other people did. Why a
mild, vague young widower who painted pictures nobody bought, and
was as unpractical as a man could be whose partnership in an
iron-works was a matter of inheritance--why such a man wanted to
marry Miss Sarah Blair was beyond anybody's wisdom. It is
conceivable, indeed, that he did not want to.