The Celebrity at Home by Violet Hunt — Read

My mother is changed -- not horrid, but quite changed. She goes out nearly every morning at ten, with Aunt Gerty, whose manners are worse than ever, and who has a little chuckling, cheerful way of going about that simply irritates me to death! There is a secret, evidently, and George and I are out of it. It brings us together. He is not happy, no more than I am, no more than Mother is. She is excited, not happy. She has taken to wearing her mouth shut lately; once we used to tease her because she kept it open, and looked always just as if she were going to speak, or had done speaking. But Mother is a good woman. Although she gads about so much, she doesn't neglect her household duties. She sees after George's comfort as much as ever, and keeps all onions out of the house as usual. The more she fusses over him, the less he likes it. He shook his head once, when Mother had tidied his writing-table for him -- it took her two hours -- and then he said half-laughing, "A bad sign, Tempe! Read your Balzac."

I don't read Balzac, and I don't know what George means. I don't try, and I find that is the best sort of sympathy one can give. At any rate, he likes it, and he is always having me in his study, and teaching me to type-write, and saying little things, like that I have put down, under his breath. He mutters a good deal to himself, not to me, and wants not so much some one to talk to, as some one to talk at.