Parents and Children

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‘I Suppose my thoughts are nothing to be proud of,’ said Eleanor Sullivan.

‘Then they are different from the rest of you, I am sure, dear.’

‘I always mean what I say, Fulbert.’

Mr Sullivan did not make the protest of himself.

‘If you reveal the thoughts, I will give them my attention,’ he said, leaning back and folding his arms with this purpose.

‘It is the old grievance of spending my best years in your parents’ home.’

‘It would be worse not to spend them in a home of any kind.’

‘You must turn everything into a joke, of course.’

‘I should be hard put to it to manage it with that. You would have a right to your long face.’

‘We should do better in a cottage of our own, than as guests in this great house.’

‘No chance of it with nine children. The cottage would not contain them. And I am not a guest: I am a son of the house.’

Fulbert uttered the words with an expression of his own, as if the position were a rather surprising one. He had a tendency to unction in speaking of himself, and the death of an elder brother had given him a place to which he had not been born.

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