"
Something in the tone struck strangely through her heart. It was the
voice of what Diana never had felt yet--deep suffering--and she gave a
little shiver.
"What an _awfully_ solemn voice James has sometimes," she said; and then
added, with a laugh, "it would make his fortune as a Methodist minister."
The sound of the light laugh and little snatches and echoes of gay talk
came back like heartless elves to mock Jim's sorrow.
"So much for _her_," he said, and turned to go and look for his mother.
CHAPTER V.
MOTHER AND SON.
He knew where he should find her. There was a little, low work-room
adjoining the kitchen that was his mother's sanctum. There stood her
work-basket--there were always piles and piles of work, begun or
finished; and there also her few books at hand, to be glanced into in
rare snatches of leisure in her busy life.
The old times New England house mother was not a mere unreflective drudge
of domestic toil. She was a reader and a thinker, keenly appreciative in
intellectual regions. The literature of that day in New England was
sparse; but whatever there was, whether in this country or in England,
that was noteworthy, was matter of keen interest, and Mrs.
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