sarcasm, that she had helped the maid tidy up, ordered his dinner, sewn his clothes, and gone through the ordinary routine of the usual ordinary day. But he only smiled and called her 'his good little mother'—proud John!—and again asked her how she had been enjoying herself. And every day, and always, he still left the house and returned to it with the same tender remarks, until she could often have screamed at him, 'Rage, John! Storm, John! Be anything but so monotonous. I am so fond of you, my John, but you bore me, oh! you bore me beyond words!'
They would miss her when she went away, principally because she meant a certain measure of domestic comfort to them. But they would have to do without her soon, if the doctor's words were true. Why not now? Why not now, so that she could have a little while to live her own life as she wished—a life of action.
'A short life in the saddle, Lord,
Not a long one by the fire.'
Where had she seen lines that read something like that? They were written by a woman, too—
