"I am not excusing myself to you, Sara, in all this; I am only explaining myself. Under the same circumstances you would never have done it, nor under twenty times the same circumstances. But I am not you; I am not anybody but myself. That lofty kind of vision which sees only the one path, and that the highest, is not mine; I always see all the shorter paths, lower down, that lead to the same place--the cross-cuts. I can do little things well, and I can do a great many of them; I have that kind of small and ever-present cleverness. But the great things, the wide view--they are beyond me. And do not forget, too, how much it was to me. It was everything. I was alone in the world with my delicate little girl, who needed so much that I could not give--luxuries, constant care, the best advice. I had strained every nerve, made use of all my poor little knowledge and my trifling accomplishments; I had worked as hard as I possibly could; and the result of all my efforts was that I had barely succeeded in getting our bread from day to day, with nothing laid up for the future, and the end of my small strength near at hand. For I was not fitted for that kind of struggle, and I knew that I was not. I could work and plan and accomplish, and even, I believed, successfully, but only when sheltered--sheltered in a home, no matter how plain, protected from actual contact with the crowd. In a crowd there is always brutality; in a crowd I lost heart. What were my small plans, which always concerned themselves with the delicate little things and details, in the great pushing struggle for bread? It was when I was fully realizing the hopelessness of all my efforts, when the future was at its blackest, and I could not look at Cecilia without danger of tears--for they had told me that something might be done for her during the next year--for her poor spine--and I had not the money to pay for it--it was then that your father's love came to me like a gift straight down from heaven. But do not think that I did not love him in return--really love him for himself, not for what he gave me. I did. I do. I had suffered so much, my life had been so crushed under sorrow and trouble, that, save my love for Cecilia, I seemed to myself to have no feelings left; I thought they were all dead. But when the Major began to love me, when he spoke--oh, then I knew that they were not! I felt that I had never known what real happiness was until that day; and my whole heart turned to him. There was gratitude in my love, I do not deny it; but the gratitude was for my little girl--the love was all for him. It has never lessened, Sara, from that hour.