I'll do it for you! If only I had seen her she would have heard a
thing or two not easy forgotten."

Linda's determination to go to Philadelphia had not been shaken, and
she made a vain effort to explain her attitude. "Of course, it was
horrid for you," she said. "I can understand how you'd never never
forgive him. But I am different, and, I expect, not at all nice.
It's very possible, since he was my father, that we are alike. I
wish you had told me this before--it explains so much and would have
made things easier for me. I am afraid I must see them."

She was aware of the bitterness and enmity that stiffened her mother
into an unaccustomed adequate scorn:

"I might have expected nothing better of you, and me watching it
coming all these years. You can go or stay. I had my life in spite
of the both of you, as gay as I pleased and a good husband just the
same. I don't care if I never see you again, and if it wasn't for
the fuss it would make I'd take care I didn't. You'll have your
father's money now I'm married; I wonder you stay around here at all
with your airs of being better than the rest. God's truth is you
ain't near as good, even if I did bring you into the world."

"I am willing to agree with you," Linda answered. "No one could be
sweeter than the Feldts. I sha'n't do nearly as well. But that isn't
it, really. People don't choose themselves; I'm certain father
didn't at that lonely Italian place. If you weren't happy laced in
the morning it wasn't your fault. You see, I am trying to excuse
myself, and that isn't any good, either."