I had a birthday last week.) But I thought at the last that she just wouldn't let me go, she clung to me so, and begged me to forgive her for all she'd brought upon me; and said it was a cruel, cruel shame, when there were children, and people ought to stop and think and remember, and be willing to stand anything.

And then, in the next breath, she'd beg me not to forget her, and not to love Father better than I did her.

(As if there was any danger of that!) And to write to her every few minutes.
Then the conductor cried, "All aboard!" and the bell rang, and she had to go and leave me.

But the last I saw of her she was waving her handkerchief, and smiling the kind of a smile that's worse than crying right out loud.

Mother's always like that.