I could say no more—I was paralyzed—I had no words.
Poor transparent Joyce, who had meant to be so generous, and who undid her work so thoroughly! How little I repaid her with my gratitude. She stood there gazing at me with a frightened expression on her lovely face.
"Go away, go away!" I stammered, wildly. "I want you to go away."
She made a movement forward as if to beg my pardon for anything she had said amiss. There was concern, pity, distress in her eyes, but I put her away. She went out of the room slowly, clasping the fragments of the broken bowl in her apron.
I threw myself down on the far window-seat. I did not cry, I never cried; but my whole body was trembling convulsively. I sat there in a trance till the latch of the front door roused me, and I heard some one come slowly, very slowly, across the hall.
Father came into the parlor; he came across to where I was, and laid his hand upon my head. The touch of it seemed to pass into me and soothe my troubled spirit.
"God help us to forget our troubles in those of others, Meg," he said, gravely, after some minutes.
And then I remembered that he had just come from the death-bed of that little lad whom he had loved so well.
I think there were tears in my eyes then.