"It’s the truth. I have to tell the truth!" "Why have you?" "Because it’s _right_ to." "Then, on your own say-so, you ain’t any o’ those things you said. Don’t you see you ain’t? A thief don’t hate what he does, so he’s afraid to be alone with himself. A liar don’t _have_ to stick to the truth, does he? A coward won’t stand up, an’ face the music, ’cause it’s _right_ to—not so you’d notice it, he won’t. All this hangin’ on to your antsisters’ shirt-tails an’ apern-strings, for good, or for bad, makes me sick on my back. I’m tired seein’ crooked sticks tryin’ to pull glory down on themselves off’n what they call their Family-trees. Don’t you fool yourself. It’s every man for himself these days—_thank God_! It don’t folla you’re what your gran’pa is, any more’n your gran’ma. You got a mind o’ your own, an’ a conscience o’ your own, an’ if you did, in a way o’ speakin’, lose your grip on yourself, an’ done what tempted you—to do it oncet, ain’t to say you’ll ever do it again. It’s just the very reason why you _won’t_ ever do it again!" Katherine shook her head. "That may be true. All I can say is, it doesn’t seem true to me now. Anyway, I can’t change my feeling about grandmother. I want never to see her again. She hates me and—I——" "Now, easy! Go easy, Miss Katherine. What makes you think the ol’ lady hates you?" "Everything she has ever done. She’s never kissed me in her life, that I can remember." "Kissin’ ain’t all there is to lovin’. What did your gran’ma want to save her money for? What did she scrimp an’ screw for, after bein’ used to live in the lap o’ lucksherry all her days——? I’m a ignorant woman, but it seems to me, she could ’a’ paid up all was owin’, and lived off’n her capital, an’ said to herself: ’Hooray! A short life, an’ a merry one! Let the grandchild I hate, look out for herself. What do _I_ care?’" "Perhaps she don’t mind saving and denying herself, any more. She’s got used to it," suggested Katherine. "Maybe she likes it." "I wouldn’t be too sure," Martha admonished, "Think it over." "I have thought it over—and over and over. Nothing will change me. I’ll not go back, Mrs. Slawson." "Where are you goin’?" "To Boston." "What for, to Boston?" "First, to tell Dr. Ballard just what and who I am. Grandmother thought it was _lying_ for me to hold back that story, when I should have made a clean breast of it, at once. She acts as if she had to protect Dr. Ballard against me. She acts as if _he_ is the one who’s dear to her and I’m the stranger. Well, I’ll show her! I’d never marry him now, if—if——" "An’, after you got through throwin’ down Dr. Ballard?" "I’ll go somewhere else. To another town—and earn my living." "Doin’ what?" "I don’t know yet. But the way will open." "You bet it will. Good an’ big, the way’ll open," Martha echoed her words with scoffing emphasis. "It’ll make you dizzy lookin’ at it gapin’ at you!"