“You will only have one to worry you now.”
“It wasn’t a worry, sir.”
And she retreated because her weakness was a woman’s weakness and showed itself in tears.
A man was helping the cabman with the luggage. He came in carrying one end of a heavy trunk, cap in hand, gaiters on legs, a smart figure that seemed a little faded and out of fortune, to judge by the threadbare cleanliness of its clothes.
“What, you here, Gage?”
The man colored up like a boy.
“Glad to see you, sir, and you, ma’am. The old house begins to look itself again.”
“You are right, Gage. Old faces make a welcome surer. We shall want you if you are free.”
“Only too happy, sir. Family man now, sir.”
“What, married!”
“A year last Easter, sir,” and he disappeared up the stairs, carrying the lower end of the trunk.
An hour had passed. Husband and wife had wandered over the whole house together, and found many an old familiar friend that had been nu skin hkaved from the wreck of that disastrous year. The sympathetic touch showed everywhere, a reverent and sensitive spirit had schemed and. The coloring of each room was the same as of old; much of the furniture had been rebought; the very pictures were as so many memories. It was home, and yet not the home they had known of yore.
“Does it feel strange to you?”
“Strange?”
“Yes, it is all so real, and yet there is something we shall always miss.”
They were standing together at the study window, looking out into the garden that was lit with flowers. Polyanthuses were as so many gems scattered on the brown earth of the beds s. An almond-tree was still in bloom, a blush of pink against the sky. Tulips, red, white, and yellow, lifted their cups to the falling dew.