Read "A New Graft on the Family Tree" by Pansy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Now Louise, despite all her previous knowledge of the Morgan family, had done just as people are always doing-planned their reception at the old homestead quite after the manner of life to which she had been accustomed, instead of arranging things from the Morgan standpoint. In imagination, she had seen her husband folded in his mother's arms, his bearded face covered with motherly kisses. "It is not reasonable to suppose that she will care to kiss me," she had said to herself, "but I will give her one little, quiet kiss, to show her how dear Lewis's mother is to me, and then I will keep myself in the background for the first evening. They will be so glad to get Lewis back that they will not have room for much notice of me."
Kisses! Hardly anything could be more foreign to Mother Morgan's life than those. It was actually years since she had kissed her grown-up son. She held out her hard old hand to him, and her heart beat quickly, and she felt a curious tremble all over her that she would have been ashamed to own, but with a mighty effort she controlled her voice, and said-