Page:Icebound.pdf/62

50

(to Ben)

Do you know I ’m sorry for you, awful sorry.

[''She speaks low. Ella and Sadie are at the other side of room''.

Then you ’re the only one.

Maybe I am, but I ’m like that.

Another month of it, then State’s Prison, I guess. I don’t know as I ’ll be sorry when the time comes.

Oh, Uncle Ben! No, I ’m not goin’ to call you that. After all, you ’re not really any relation, are you? I mean to me?

No.

(softly)

I ’m just going to call you Ben!

You ’re a good kid, Nettie.

Oh, it isn ’t that, Ben, but it does just seem too awful.

[''As she looks up at him, the outside door opens and Henry and Emma enter. They see Nettie and Ben together by the fire''.

(sternly)

Nettie!

(sweetly)

Yes, mother?

You come away from him.