's not the kind that enjoys
seeing other folks squirm. Only she wants things the way she wants
them. Don't let anything old Saunders said worry you. I suppose he
laid all my worthlessness at Madrina's door too. He'd got into that
way of thinking, sort of dotty on the subject anyhow. He was terribly
hard hit, you know. I don't deny either that Madrina did keep him
strung on hot wire for several years. I don't suppose it occurred
to her that there was any reason why she shouldn't if he were fool
enough. I never could see that he wasn't some to blame too. All he had
to do--all they any of them ever had to do, was to get out and stay
out. Madrina'd never lift a finger to hinder. Even Saunders, I guess,
would have had to admit that Madrina always had plenty of dignity. And
as for me, great Scott! what could you expect a woman like Madrina to
do with a boy like me! She never liked me, for one thing; and then
I always bored her almost more than she could stand. But she never
showed her impatience, never once. She's really awfully good-natured
in her way. She wanted to make me into a salon sort of person,
somebody who'd talk at her teas--converse, don't you know. You see
_me_, don't you! It was hard on her. If she'd had you, now--I always
thought you were the only person in the world she ever really cared
for. She does, you know. All this year you've been with her, she's
seemed so different, more like a real woman. Maybe she's had her
troubles too. Maybe she's been deathly lonely. Don't you go back on
her too hard. Madrina's no vampire. That's just old Saunders' addled
wits. She's one of the nicest people in the world to live with, if you
don't need her for anything. And she really does care a lot for you,
Sylvia. That time out in Chicago, when we were all kids, when I wanted
to go to live with your mother, I remember that Madrina suggested to
her (and Madrina would have done it in a minute, too)--she suggested
that they change off, she take you to bring up and I go out to live
with your mother," He stopped to look at the woman beside him. "I
don't know about you, Sylvia, but I guess it would have made some
difference in my life!"

Sylvia drew back, horrified that he was even in thought, even for a
moment robbing her of her mother. "Oh, what I would have been--I can't
bear to _think_ of what kind of woman I would have been without my
mother!" The idea was terrible to her. She shrank away from her
aunt as never before in her li