"You're fond of kiddies, aren't you, Sally?" she asked suddenly.
A tender look crept into Sally's eyes. "You know I am," she replied.
"Well--why don't you go down to your people at Cailsham and help them
for a little while in the school?"
The look of tenderness died out. Her eyes roamed pitiably about the
room.
"I couldn't leave here," she said powerlessly.
"Why not?"
"I couldn't. It's all reminding me I know; but I couldn't be happy
anywhere else. I should be miserable away from here."
The meeting of such obstacles as this, Janet had anticipated. She
knew well that slough of the mind which sucks in its own despair,
and with all the concentration of her persuasion, she strove to lift
Sally out of the morass. Failing on that occasion, she turned the
conversation into another channel--let it drift as it pleased; but
the next day she led it back again. At all costs Sally must be removed
from the association of her surroundings, and no means offered better
than these. Yet at the end of three weeks, notwithstanding all the
patient persuasion that she employed, her object was as far from
being reached as at the beginning.
"If you spoil your life, Sally," she said, as she was going, "it'll
be the bitterest disappointment to me that I can think of.
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