you know. He said she might have her way
for a while with the schools, but that he would
come for me. He never asks how my mother
is, or mentions her at all. But when I write,
I tell him; for I know he wants to know. I tell
him about how well she is and a little bit about
what she is doing. In the last letter I said,
'to keep from being too unhappy and missing
you.'”

“I _casually_ _mention_ hearing from my father
to my mother and I leave the letter where she
can read it, pretending to take it for granted
that she will read it, of course. But Mother
wouldn't ask for the letters and for a long
time I think she didn't read them, till one day
I wanted to look up something my father said
about what he was doing and I found several
old letters to me lying on Mother's desk. Of
course she had been called somewhere and had
forgotten to take them back to my room. It
did not matter, to be sure, except to keep from
me that she wanted to read them. Do you
think I am very dreadful to tell anybody all
this, Betty? You see I want you to tell me what
else you think I could do.”

But Lucia did not wait for Betty's comment.
She went on with the account.

“I'm not going to put up with it, Betty!

[[96]]

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