Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/55

Rh asked me in just the same pretty way, twelve years ago. Lordy! Lordy!" she ejaculated, and sank into a deep, voluminous stuffed chair. "I can see," she went on, "how your mother stands doing the same things over and over again, year in and year out. She has to. She's tied to a wheel-chair—but you—young and well and strong! It's beyond me."

"It isn't always wheel-chairs," timidly Reba replied, "that—that—" she stopped, embarrassed.

"No," took up Cousin Pattie. "Sometimes it's Aunt Augustas, eh, Reba?" She winked at Reba. "Bless me," she went on, "when I was your age I was tied to about ten wheel-chairs of one kind or another, but I got rid of them somehow. I staved 'em to pieces and tossed them aside—all of them, all but one; that is," she added laughingly, "my flesh, and that I lug around with me. Of course it interferes somewhat," she confessed. "I have to give up mountain-climbing for the most part, though I did get a look down into the crater of Vesuvius. I tell you," she went on, "I don't let obstacles stop me. Not by a long shot. When I was your age I made up my mind I wouldn't go and get meek and submissive, even though I was born in New England. I wouldn't go and crawl underneath my cross, and stay there, calling myself good and pious, like half the women I've been seeing to-day, when all the time," she concluded with vehemence, "they're too weak and scared to go out and fight the difficult circumstances heaven has sent them. Oh, I get all out of patience with New England women sometimes. I've had a big dose of them to-day, and you mustn't mind the way I talk."

"Oh, I don't, I don't," murmured Reba.