I liked, and even loved
Mrs. Butts, too, for her own sake. Her kindness to me was unlimited,
and she was never overcome with the fear of "spoiling me," which
seemed the constant dread of most of my hostesses. I never lost my
love for her. It grew as I grew, despite my mother's scarcely
suppressed hostility to her, and when I heard she was ill, and was
likely to die, I went to be with her. She was eighty years old then.
I sat by her bedside with her hand in mine. I was there when she
passed away, and--but I have no mind and no power to say any more,
for all the memories of her affection and of the sunny days by the
water come over me and prevent the calmness necessary for a
chronicle. She with all her faults and eccentricities will always
have in my heart a little chapel with an ever-burning light. She was
one of the very very few whom I have ever seen who knew how to love a
child.
Mrs. Butts and George had one son who was named Clement. He was
exactly my own age, and naturally we were constant companions. We
went to the same school. He never distinguished himself at his
books, but he was chief among us. He had a versatile talent for
almost every accomplishment in which we delighted, but he was not
supreme in any one of them.
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