"It's queer about dyin'," he said at last.
She answered him tumultuously:—
"What is?"
"Why—" then he paused, as if to set his thought in order. "I can't tell jest what I mean. Only folks can be here to-day an' there to-morrer. An' they can be all of a bloom of health, or handsome as a pictur'—an' lo ye! they're changed!"
A cold certainty settled upon her heart. The first wife had, then, been handsome. Lydia did not know whether acquired knowledge was a boon or not. Eben had risen, and was standing with his hands in his pockets, still looking into space. It seemed to her that he was miles away.
"An' I dunno which is the worst," he was saying, "to have 'em come down with a long sickness, or drop off sudden. I do, too. It's worse to see 'em suffer. But when they give right up afore your face an' eyes—"
He stopped, and Lydia thought he shuddered. Again she knew. The first wife had died suddenly, and the memory of the shock was too keen upon him to admit of speech. But he shook off reflection as if it had been the dust of the hour. Now he turned to her, and the sweet recognition of his glance was warming her anew. "Don't you go an' play me any such trick," he said, with the whimsical creases deepening in his cheeks.
Yet she thought his eyes were wet.
"What?"
"Dyin'."