“Your mother, poor child!--but that of course, that of course, Edgar; how could she be otherwise than fond of her first-born? Your mother’s entire life was absorbed in an attempt to satisfy her husband. I saw the whole process; and it made my heart bleed. She was a passive, gentle, little creature--not like him. She shrank from the world, and all that was going on in it. She liked melancholy books and sad songs, and all that--one of the creatures doomed to die young. And he was so different! She used to strain and strain her faculties trying to please him. She would try to amuse him even in her innocent way. It was very hard upon her, Edgar. You are an active, restless sort of being yourself; but, for heaven’s sake, don’t worry your wife when you get one. Let her follow her own constitution a little. She tried and tried till she could strive no longer: and when Clare was born, I think she was quite glad to be obliged to give in, and get a little rest in her grave. Of course, she was not here all the time. They used to come and go, and never stayed more than a month or two. You were left behind very often. The Doctor never saw her,” Mr. Fielding added pointedly, “till just before she died. He had newly come back and got settled in his house. He never saw her but on her death-bed. He knew nothing about her; but I--you may think I am bragging like a garrulous old talker as I am--but I saw a great deal of her one way or another. I think she felt she had a friend in me.” “Thanks!” Edgar said below his breath. He was too deeply moved to look at his old friend, nor could he trust himself to speak. “I buried her,” said the old clergyman in his musing way. “You know the place. It was all I could do to keep from crying loud out like a child. I lost my own wife the same way; but the child died too. That is one reason, perhaps, why I am so fond of Clare. When you come to think of it, Edgar, this world is a dreary place to live so long in. A year or two’s brightness you may have, and then the long, long, steady twilight that never changes. They are saved a great deal when they die early. What with her natural weakness, and what with you, it would have been hard upon her had she lived. However, it is lucky for us that life and death are not in our power.” “I hate myself for thinking of myself when you have been telling me of--her,” said Edgar. “But--my fate, it appears, was the same from the beginning. It could not arise from anything--found out?” “There was nothing that could be found out,” Mr. Fielding answered, almost severely. “Your mother was as good a woman as ever lived--too good. If she had been less tender and less gentle it would have been better for her--and for her son as well. Yes, there is such a thing as being too good.” “Am I like her?” said Edgar suddenly, looking for the first time in the Rector’s face.