With your talents you might have
done almost anything; and here you are, a man still in middle life,
saddled and encumbered with a helpless invalid wife and half a score of
children, to take all you earn faster than you can get it. It is a mere
wasted existence, and if you had listened to me it might all have been
different."
"How cruel!" exclaimed Edith to herself indignantly. "Does Aunt Rachel
think I am a stock or a stone, to sit and hear my mother--all of
us--spoken about like that? I shall never, never be able to bear it!"
Even the doctor was roused. "Once for all, Rachel," he said in a
peremptory tone, "you must understand that I cannot allow my wife and
children to be spoken of in this manner. No doubt I have had to make
sacrifices, but my family have been a source of much happiness to me;
and Maria, who cannot help her health, poor thing! has done her best
under circumstances that would have crushed a great many women. As for
the children, of course they have their faults, but altogether they are
good children, and I often feel proud of them. You have been kind enough
to ask Edith to stay here, but if I thought you would make her life
unhappy with such speeches as you made just now, I would take her back
with me to-morrow."
"Well, well," said Miss Harley, a little frightened at the indignation
she had raised. "You need not take me up so, Henry. Of course I shall
not be so foolish as to talk to the child just as I would to you.
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