"
That last day's work had made a great step in Ebbo's life, and there
he stood, grave and firm, ready for the assault; for, in effect, he
and all besides expected that the old lady would fly at him or at his
mother like a wild cat, as she would assuredly have done in a like
case a year earlier; but she took them all by surprise by collapsing
into her chair and sobbing piteously. Ebbo, much distressed, tried
to make her understand that she was to have all care and honour; but
she muttered something about ingratitude, and continued to exhaust
herself with weeping, spurning away all who approached her; and
thenceforth she lived in a gloomy, sullen acquiescence in her
deposition.
Christina inclined to the opinion that she must have had some slight
stroke in the night, for she was never the same woman again; her
vigour had passed away, and she would sit spinning, or rocking
herself in her chair, scarcely alive to what passed, or scolding and
fretting like a shadow of her old violence. Nothing pleased her but
the attentions of her grandsons, and happily she soon ceased to know
them apart, and gave Ebbo credit for all that was done for her by
Friedel, whose separate existence she seemed to have forgotten.
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