' He has given all he had to
give, poor boy; why he gave it is his own affair."
"I hope--what I told you--has made no difference about his coming home.
It's stupid of me to think it. But hard words come back, don't they,
mother? Hard words--to an old friend!"
"Billy is all right, dear; and it was so natural you should be tried with
him! 'For to be wroth with one we'"--Mrs. Valentin had another of her
narrow escapes. "Come, there is the porter waiting for us."
"Mother," said Elsie sternly, "please don't misunderstand. I should never
have spoken of this if I had been 'wroth' with him--in that way."
"Of course not, dear; I understand. And it would never do, anyway, for
father doesn't like the blood."
"Father doesn't like the--what, mother?"
Elsie asked the question half an hour later, as they sat in an adjoining
section, waiting for their berths to be made up.
"What, dear?"
"What did you say father doesn't like--in the Castants?"
"Oh, the blood, the family. This generation is all right--apparently. But
blood will tell. You are too young to know all the old histories that
fathers and mothers read young people by.
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