“There is where the gladness comes in,” said Mrs. Patience. “It is making the hours of suffering a little brighter, a little easier. And now you have learned this I think you will never forget it.”
“And I also remember that I promised to come down to Helen Green’s to get out my Latin with her,” and gathering an armful of books Rose hurried away.
“I am glad that Rose went in to see Aunt Polly; she is such a bit of sunshine that she could not help but do her good. Besides, she has always had such a morbid dread of a sick room,” Silence remarked as she watched her away.
“I am glad, too,” agreed Mrs. Blossom, “for Rose can gain as well as give. Of course I would not want her to go where there was any danger, but her exuberant young nature will be made the deeper and richer for being stirred and lifted out of itself.”
So among the threads of interest running from the Blossom home Rose knit her threads. The people of Farmdale became her friends, and because they were her friends she loved them, and so it was not strange that she won love in return. With the Fifields her relations through the years continued of the friendliest. On her part the painfulness of being falsely accused had faded away; and on their part the fact that it had been an unjust charge had not only made them one and all feel that they owed her something in return, but had awakened an interest in her that otherwise they might never have felt. Miss Eudora regarded her in the light of a romance; Miss Jane Fifield commended the fact that she was neither vain, nor, as she was pleased to put it, “silly”; while Mr. Nathan, in his pride at Rose’s persistence, and the quality he called her “grit,” went so far as to freshen up the languages of his college days, that he might the more help her.
At their time of life it was not to be expected that the Fifield nature would greatly change; still their friendship for Rose, inexperienced young girl though she was, brought a new and wholesome atmosphere into the old house. Her flitting in and out, bright, breezy, vivacious, was a welcome break in their old formality. A part of Rose’s nature was her overflowing enthusiasm on the subject then in mind; her studies, her school pleasures, whatever part was hers in the life of the village, was all shared with her friends. So when she came in beaming with excitement over the prettiness of the newest Banby baby, Miss Fifield and Miss Eudora became conscious that Mrs. Banby was a neighbor. Or if it were anxiety how little Mrs. Mather, whose husband had just died and left her with five children, was ever going to get through the winter; or rejoicing that Fanny Barber, who had been so low with inflammatory rheumatism was really improving, almost before they were aware, they would find themselves becoming interested, an interest that could easily take the form of a bundle of warm clothing for the widow, or a glass of Miss Fifield’s famous quince jelly for the invalid. And so by the slight touches of Rose’s hands they found themselves drawn gradually from their cold isolation, and nearer to those about them.
CHAPTER XXIII
A VISIT FROM AN OLD FRIEND
Through Cousin Allen Gloin’s wife’s sister, who lived in Horsham, Rose occasionally heard of the Hagoods, and the year after she left there was surprised by the news of Mrs. Hagood’s death.
“Mr. Hagood takes it real hard,” added her informant, “and says he don’t know how he’s ever going to get along without Almiry. Some folks thinks it’s put on, but for my part I don’t.”
“No, indeed,” had been Rose’s answer, “I think he had grown so used to her ordering him around that now he does feel lost without it.”