ht that Mrs. Milray was going to ask her to
visit her in New York; Mrs. Milray had thrown out a hint of something
of the kind at parting, but that was the last of it; and now she at
once made up her mind that she would like to go with Mrs. Lander, while
discreetly saying that she would ask her father and mother to come and
talk with her.

XIII.

Her parents objected to leaving their work; each suggested that the
other had better go; but they both came at Clementina's urgence. Her
father laughed and her mother frowned when she told them what Mrs.
Lander wanted, from the same misgiving of her sanity. They partly
abandoned this theory for a conviction of Mrs. Lander's mere folly when
she began to talk, and this slowly yielded to the perception that she
had some streaks of sense. It was sense in the first place to want to
have Clementina with her, and though it might not be sense to suppose
that they would be anxious to let her go, they did not find so much want
of it as Mrs. Lander talked on. It was one of her necessities to talk
away her emotions before arriving at her ideas, which were often found
in a tangle, but were not without a certain propriety. She was now,
after her interview with Clementina, in the immediate presence of these,
and it was her ideas that she began to produce for the girl's father and
mother. She said, frankly, that she had more money than she knew what to
do with, and they must not think she supposed she was doing a favor, for
she was really asking one.

She was alone in the world, without near connections of her own, or
relatives of her husband's, and it would be a mercy if they could let
their daughter come and visit her; she would not call it more than a
visit; that would be the best thing on both sides; she told of her great
fancy for Clementina the first time she saw her, and of her husband's
wish that she would come and visit with them then for the winter. As for
that money she had tried to make the child take, she presumed that they
knew about it, and she wished to say that she did it because she was
afraid Mr. Lander had said so much about the sewing, that they would
be disappointed. She gave way to her tears at the recollection, and
confessed that she wanted the child to have the money anyway. She ended
by asking Mrs. Claxon if she would please to let her have a drink of
water; and she looked about the room, and said that they had got it
finished up a great deal, now, had not the