Patty suffered more from the weakness and prejudices of her mother than any one but Dr. Sanford himself. Will, both from his sex and from being much away from home, treated her oddities rather as witticisms. In his sister an inborn reverence for family, and a devotion to the name and relation of a mother, fought with her perception of the ludicrous, and an instinctive repugnance to narrowness and mental inferiority. Shut her eyes as she might, she could not be blind to her mother's faults; and Mrs. Sanford's affection, which should have compensated, had always appeared rather an accident of custom, and but skin-deep. The silly blunders which the doctor's wife constantly made, her absurd superstitions, continually jarred upon her daughter. Patty reproached herself sharply, her conscience flagellating her with vigorous arm for discerning these shortcomings of her mother; but no amount of self-reproach can dull the mental vision. She attempted to see only her mother's kindly deeds; but Patty was neither the first nor the last to discover that reverence and love are not to be constrained by an illogical balance-sheet; and that the taking account of stock in affection generally indicates a tendency to bankruptcy. Mrs. Sanford had remained in suspense as long as she was able to endure it; and, upon the morning referred to earlier in this chapter, she at last spoke definitely. She was a little in awe of her daughter, having more than once been confused and worsted by that young lady's quickness of thought and expression; and the "Sanford will," she knew of old, had a strength against which it was useless to contend, if it were once determinedly fixed. "Patty," she said, as they chanced to be alone together, "didn't I hear you tell Willie you were going to ride with Clarence Toxteth this afternoon?" "Yes, mother. We are going to Samoset to look at those costumes." "I am glad of it. You haven't treated him very well lately." "You are losing a hairpin, mother." "Dear me! Your father's thinking of me, I suppose." "It ought to please you to have your husband think of you." "He needn't think all the hairpins out of my head, though," responded Mrs. Sanford. "I'm always losing them." "Where does the sewing-circle meet next week?" Patty asked, endeavoring to lead the conversation as far as possible from its original theme. "At Mrs. Brown's; though I doubt she won't be ready for it until a week after it's all over. I declare, I thank the Lord I ain't so shiftless!" "Well you may," Patty said lightly, feeling safe now. "He'll be the richest man in Montfield," said Mrs. Sanford, returning to the charge with an abruptness which found the other off her guard. "Well, what of that?" her daughter asked absently. "What of that!" the mother cried impatiently. "A good deal of that. But I suppose you'd refuse him, if he offered himself to-day." "Of course, mother. You know I'm never going to marry."