"I don't seem to want to, dearie," she said with difficulty; "the girls
keep telling me to, but--I don't know! I don't seem to want to. Papa and
I used to like to walk up and down in the garden--"
Speech became too difficult, and she stopped abruptly.
"I know," Julia said sorrowfully.
"It would have been thirty-five years this November," Mrs. Toland
presently said. "We were engaged in August and married in November.
Marriage is a wonderful thing, Julia--it's a wonderful thing! Papa was
very much smarter than I am--I always knew that! But after a while
people come to love each other partly for just that--the differences
between them! And you look back so differently on the mistakes you have
made. I've always been too easy on the girls, and Ned, too, and Papa
knew it, but he never reproached me!" She wiped her eyes quietly. "You
must have had a sensible mother, Julie," she added, after a moment;
"you're such a wise little thing!"
"I don't believe she was very wise," Julia said, smiling, "any more than
I am! I may not make the mistakes with Anna that Mama made with me, but
I'll make others! It's a sort of miracle to see her now, so brave and
good and contented, after all the storms I remember.
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