Again we tried the tune, and had just
got to
"And vie with Gabriel, while he sings."
Up jumped mother again, stopping in the door, and holding up a warning
finger to Aunt Clara. That gesture spurred my curiosity to the utmost
point. As to my beloved parent's running in and out, _that_ I should not
have heeded. She is like Martha, careful of many things. She is unlike
Martha, for she wants no assistance; but when the rest of us are
disposed to be quiet, she _will_ keep flitting here and there, and is
vexed if we follow. If father is talking, and has just reached the point
of his story, off she goes, as if the common topic were nothing to her.
Father says she is a perturbed spirit. But then he is always saying
queer things, which poor mother cannot understand. Aunt Clara seems to
know him a great deal better. I wonder he had not taken to wife a woman
like Aunt Clara. He would have taken _her_, I suppose, if she were not
his own sister.
I besought mother, as she fled, to tell me what ailed aunty. "Don't ask
_me_," she answered. "The dear only knows. As for me, I have given up
thinking, let alone asking, what either your aunt or your father would
be at." And away she went, perturbed-spirit fashion, and Aunt Clara
laughed louder than ever.
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