"You don't deserve a child," she told him bitterly. "You might
treat him when he grew up as you treat me."

"I've never laid hand to you," said Martin gruffly, certain
stinging words of Nellie's still smarting. When she chose, his
sister's tongue could be waspish. She had tormented him with it
all the way to her home. He had been goaded into flaring back and
both had been thoroughly angry when they separated, yet he was
conscious that he came nearer a feeling of affection for her than
for any living person. Well, not affection, precisely, he
corrected. It was rather that he relished, with a quizzical
amusement, the completeness of their mutual comprehension. She
was growing to be more like their mother, too. Decidedly, this
was the type of woman he should have married, not someone soft
and eager and full of silly sentiment like Rose. Why didn't she
hold her own as Nellie did? Have more snap and stamina? It was
exasperating--the way she frequently made him feel as if he
actually were trampling on something defenseless.

He now frankly hated her. There was not dislike merely; there was
acute antipathy. He took a delight in having her work harder and
harder. It used to be "Rose," but now it was always "say" or
"you" or "hey." Once she asked cynically if he had ever heard of
a "Rose of Sharon" to which he maliciously replied: "She turned
out to be a Rag-weed."

Yet such a leveller of emotions and an adjuster of disparate
dispositions is Time that when they rounded their fourth year,
Martin viewed his life, with a few reservations, as fairly
satisfactory. He turned the matter over judicially in his mind