Kennedy, rising from his
chair. "And they will be damned."
"A woman doesn't like to be told so."
"I never told her so. I never said anything of the kind. I never
spoke a hard word to her in my life. If her head did but ache, I hung
over her with the tenderest solicitude. I refused her nothing. When
I found that she was impatient I chose the shortest sermon for our
Sunday evening's worship, to the great discomfort of my mother."
Phineas wondered whether this assertion as to the discomfort of old
Mrs. Kennedy could possibly be true. Could it be that any human being
really preferred a long sermon to a short one,--except the being who
preached it or read it aloud? "There was nothing that I did not do
for her. I suppose you really do know why she went away, Mr. Finn?"
"I know nothing more than I have said."
"I did think once that she was--"
"There was nothing more than I have said," asserted Phineas sternly,
fearing that the poor insane man was about to make some suggestion
that would be terribly painful.
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