"
Ivory looked up in astonishment from his Greek grammar. This was
an entirely new turn of his mother's mind. Often when she was
more than usually confused he would try to clear the cobwebs from
her brain by gently questioning her until she brought herself
back to a clearer understanding of her own thought. Thus far her
vagaries had never made her unjust to any human creature; she was
uniformly sweet and gentle in speech and demeanor.
"Why do you talk of Rod's visiting us when he is one of the
family?" Ivory asked quietly.
"Is he one of the family? I didn't know it," replied his mother
absently.
"Look at me, mother, straight in the eye; that's right: now
listen, dear, to what I say."
Mrs. Boynton's hair that had been in her youth like an aureole of
corn-silk was now a strange yellow-white, and her blue eyes
looked out from her pale face with a helpless appeal.
"You and I were living alone here after father went away," Ivory
began. "I was a little boy, you know. You and father had saved
something, there was the farm, you worked like a slave, I helped,
and we lived, somehow, do you remember?"
"I do, indeed! It was cold and the neighbors were cruel. Jacob
Cochrane had gone away and his disciples were not always true to
him.
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