“Why do you always ask that, mother?” retorted Grace, with her growing irritation in regard to her patient intensified by the recent interview.  “I can’t be with her the whole time.”

“I wish you could,” said Mrs. Breen, with noncommittal suggestion.

Grace could not keep herself from demanding, “Why?” as her mother expected, though she knew why too well.

“Because she wouldn’t be in mischief then,” returned Mrs. Breen.

“She’s in mischief now!” cried the girl vehemently; “and it’s my fault!  I did it.  I sent her off to sail with that ridiculous Mr. Libby!”

“Why?” asked Mrs. Breen, in her turn, with unbroken tranquillity.

“Because I am a, fool, and I couldn’t help him lie out of his engagement with her.”

“Did n’t he want to go?”

“I don’t know.  Yes.  They both wanted me to go with them.  Simpletons!  And while she had gone up-stairs for her wraps I managed to make him understand that I did n’t wish her to go, either; and he ran down to his boat, and came back with a story about its going to be rough, and looked at me perfectly delighted, as if I should be pleased.  Of course, then, I made him take her.”

“And is n’t it going to be rough?” asked Mrs. Green.

“Why, mother, the sea’s like glass.”

Mrs. Breen turned the subject.  “You would have done better, Grace, to begin as you had planned.  Your going to Fall River, and beginning practice there among those factory children, was the only thing that I ever entirely liked in your taking up medicine.  There was sense in that.  You had studied specially for it.  You could have done good there.”

“Oh, yes,” sighed the girl, “I know.  But what was I to do, when she came to us, sick and poor?  I couldn’t turn my back on her, especially after always befriending her, as I used to, at school, and getting her to depend on me.”

“I don’t see how you ever liked her,” said Mrs. Breen.

“I never did like her.  I pitied her.  I always thought her a poor, flimsy little thing.  But that ought n’t to make any difference, if she was in trouble.”

“No,” Mrs. Breen conceded, and in compensation Grace admitted something more on her side:  “She’s worse than she used to be,—­sillier.  I don’t suppose she has a wrong thought; but she’s as light as foam.”

“Oh, it is n’t the wicked people who, do the harm,” said Mrs. Green.

“I was sure that this air would be everything for her; and so it would, with any ordinary case.  But a child would take better care of itself.  I have to watch her every minute, like a child; and I never know what she will do next.”

“Yes; it’s a burden,” said Mrs. Breen, with a sympathy which she had not expressed before.  “And you’re a good girl, Grace,” she added in very unwonted recognition.

The grateful tears stole into the daughter’s eyes, but she kept a firm face, even after they began to follow one another down her cheeks.  “And if Louise had n’t come, you know, mother, that I was anxious to have some older person with me when I went to Fall River.  I was glad to have this respite; it gives me a chance to think.  I felt a little timid about beginning alone.”