"At first it was quite dreadful to me. I couldn't say anything. Then I remembered how we used to talk of mother, as if she was only in the next room. And then I sit here and think, when the sky is such a splendid blue and there come little white rifts in it, as if somewhere it opened, I can almost see them. Can't people come back for a few moments?"
"Only in dreams, I imagine."
"I can almost see them. And they are so glad to be together. And I know father says, 'Cynthia will come by and by.' But twenty years, or thirty years, is a long while to wait."
Perhaps she wouldn't need to wait so long, he thought, as he noted the transparent face.
"And now I should be sorry to go away from you," she said, with grave sweetness.
"I think your father meant you should stay a long while with me when he gave you to me;" and he pressed her closer to his heart.
So she did not wear mourning, to Elizabeth's very real displeasure. There was no further talk about the school, but she did try to sew a little and began the sampler. Cousin Eunice was her guide here. She brought out hers that was over fifty years old, and all the colors were fading.
"I wonder if I shall live fifty years," she mused.
Driving about was her great entertainment. You could go to Marblehead, which was a peninsula. There were the fishery huts and the men curing and drying fish. Sometimes they took passage in one of the numerous sailing vessels and went in and out the irregular shore, and saw Boston from the bay. It seemed in those times as if it might get drowned out, there was so much water around it.
"And if it should float off out to sea, some day," she half inquired, laughingly.