For her there could be no expensive trousseau ordered at some first class city store. It would have to be a labor of love and necessity.
She was quite demure and precise for awhile, then Harry Denham came home from the West, and she broke out into a regular frolic. Nothing very bad or harmful, but her olden self that could not be altogether repressed. Mamma came in with a guiding hand, and I think she understood that she was being led over a dangerous place. Oh, wise and tender mothers, what should we do without you?
I went to Mrs. Ryder’s one afternoon to tea, Jennie had asked me specially on Sunday. “Come early,” she said, “so that we can have a nice talk while mother is taking her rest.”
I could imagine what we were to talk about. Jennie kissed me with a sweet, earnest tenderness, seated me in a low chair by the window and began to take off my hat, and shawl.
“Your mother is not any worse?” I began by way of getting into the common-places of talk before we should feel awkward.
“O no. Indeed I think she improves a little. She walks better than she did.”
“I am so glad of that.”
“Not that she will ever regain the entire use of her limbs. That would be too great a hope. But it is so nice to have her even this way. I sometimes think how lonely and forlorn I should have been without one dear friend of my very own.”
“I could not spare any one,” I returned, looking away.
“And you have so many.”