"I can't think what you're taking on so about," she said, spreading the shawl out over Missy's feet, picking up the lantern, and tidying up the boat-house as a natural vent to her feelings. "There might have been some sense in it if they had come in without the child, as we thought they would; or if he'd been your own child, or if it had been any fault of yours, that he got carried off. There's nothing ever gained by bothering about other people's troubles; folks have generally got enough to do in getting along with their own. The Lord gives you grace to bear what He sends you--at least He engages to; but there ain't any promises to them that take on about what they've taken up of themselves. Don't set your heart on other people's children unless you want it broken for you. And don't go to managing other people's matters unless you want to get into the hottest kind of water. You burn your fingers when you put 'em into other people's pies. Every man for himself and every woman for herself, most emphatic. Keep your tears till the Lord sends you children of your own to cry about; goodness knows you'll need 'em all if you ever come to that." Goneril had had two children in her early disastrous marriage; one had died, and one had lived to go to destruction in his father's steps, so she always bore about with her a sore heart, and the passionate love of children, which she could not repress, she always fought down fiercely with both hands. Her sharp words did not soothe Missy much. She cried and cried as if there were nothing left to live for, and the fact that Mr. Andrews was there and was trying to make her hear him above Goneril's tirade, did not help matters in the least. "If you'll take my advice," said Goneril to this latter person, dashing some more brandy and water into a glass, and speaking to him over her shoulder as she did it, "If you'll take my advice, you'll go away and leave her to get over it by herself. She's just got to cry it out, and the sight of you and the boy'll only make it worse. Take him home and put him to bed, and let's have a little common sense." "Oh, go away, go away, everybody," cried poor Missy, smothering her face down in the shawls. "Take this," said Goneril, sternly, holding the brandy and water to her lips, which she had no choice but to take, and it was a mercy that she didn't strangle amidst her sobs. But she didn't, and found voice to say, "I am better. I don't want anything but to be by myself," before she began to sob again.