“Poor little wife! so this is how it looks to you. You women are sensitive creatures. Why, do you know, it never occurred to me that it might be all _my_ fault. Well, I will not laugh at the fancy. Let us take it seriously, even if, as it seems to me, a little morbid. Let us suppose that this sad sullenness of which I hear so much and see so little, is, indeed, Agnes’s inheritance from her mother--may she only inherit all the rest, and happy the man whose life she blesses! The question is not ‘How has it come?’ but ‘How are we to deal with it?’--equally, you and I. Poor things! It’s but a very half-and-half kind of matrimony if each is to pick out his or her own particular bundle of failings, and deal with it single-handed. This poor man finds the prospect too much for him! As a matter of fact, though, I believe that every failing of mind, body, temper, and what not, is a matter of inheritance, and that each parent’s particular business in life is to pass his family forward freed from that particular vicious tendency which has been his own bane--or hers, if you prefer it.” “Well, dear, do as you will; I feel that you know best. What it would be in these days of greater insight to be married to a man who would say, ‘There, that boy may thank his mother’ for this or the other failure. Of course, the thing is done now, but more often than not as a random guess.” “To return to Agnes. I think we shall have to show her to herself in this matter, to rake up the ugly feeling, however involuntary, and let her see how hateful it is. Yes, I do not wonder you shrink from this. So do I. It will destroy the child’s unconsciousness.” “Oh, Edward, how I dread to poke into the poor little wounded heart, and bring up worse things to startle her!” “I am sorry for you, dear, but I think it must be done; and don’t you think you are the person to do it? While they have a mother I don’t think I could presume to poke too much into the secrets of the children’s hearts.” “I’ll try; but if I get into a mess you must help me through.” The opportunity came soon enough. It was pears this time. Harry would never have known whether he had the biggest or the least. But we had told nurse to be especially careful in this matter. “Each of the children must have the biggest or best as often as one another, but there must be no fuss, no taking turns, about such trifles. Therefore, very rightly, you gave Harry the bigger and Agnes the smaller pear.” Agnes’s pear was not touched; there the child sat, without word or sob, but all gathered into herself, like a sea anemone whose tentacles have been touched. The stillness, whiteness, and brooding sullenness of the face, the limp figure and desolate attitude, would have made me take the little being to my heart if I had not too often failed to reach her in this way. This went on all day, all of us suffering; and in the evening, when I went to hear the children’s prayers before bed, I meant to have it out.