"She has needed all her pride."

"I don't object to pride, myself," said the girl, "but you dwell so upon
her humiliations. I see no such record in her face."

"She has had much to hide, you must remember."

"Well, she can hide things; but one's self must escape sometimes. What has
become of little Emily Van Elten who ran away with her father's hired man?
What has become of the freighter's wife?"

"She is all mother now. She brought us back to the world, and for our
sakes she has learned to take her place in it. Herself she has buried."

"Yes; but which is--was herself?"

"And you cannot see her story in her face?"

"Not that story."

"Not the crushing reserve, the long suspense, the silence of a sorrow that
even her children could not share?"

"I know her silence. Your mother is a most reticent woman. But is she now
the woman of that story?"

"I don't understand you quite," said Paul. "How much are we ourselves
after we have passed through fires of grief, and been recast under the
pressure of circumstances! She was that woman once."