"You
ought to be patient with her condition," he said. His own patience
was inexhaustible, and its root, as Blossom had suspected, lay in his
remorseful indifference. With Molly he had not been patient, but he had
loved her.
"Don't talk to me about patience," rejoined Sarah, "haven't I had nine
an' lost six?"
She was entirely without the sentiment which her son felt regarding the
physical function of motherhood, for like the majority of sentiments, it
had worn thin when it had been stretched over a continual repetition of
facts. To Abel the mystery was still shrouded in a veil of sympathy,
and was hardly to be thought of without tenderness. But his solicitude
merely nettled Sarah. Nobody had ever "carried on" over her when she had
had her nine.
"Have you said anything sharp to her to-day, mother?" he inquired
suspiciously, after a minute.
"You know I ain't, Abel. She left a dirty glass in the dairy an' I never
so much as mentioned it. Did Mr. Mullen complain of her leavin' off
mission work?"
"Why, of course not. He talked to us only a few minutes and he seemed
absent-minded. He's had a good call somewhere in the North, and he told
us that he had prayed over it unceasingly and he believed that the Lord
was directing him to larger fields.
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