I was furious and miserable.
I said to myself that, of course, my mother would never dream. . . . But the servants gossip poisoned all the time of primroses that year. I thought about little else in our walks.
Once we met him. Something began that day to whisper in the back of my head: "If he asks her enough she might give in. She does to me when I persist."
Out of my first great anxiety was born the beginning of my knowledge of my mother's character.
I could see that she, too, was afraid of giving in.
But afraid of contest quite as much. Afraid of - I knew not what. But I knew she stayed away from church, because she was afraid. I knew our walks were different, because we were always thinking we might meet him.
I prayed God to give my mother strength - for Christ's sake not to let it happen. Morning and night I prayed that prayer for half a summer.
Dreadful as the issue was, I was thankful afterwards that I had taken the matter in hand.
