“It was vision,” he answered sadly. “The same experience came to Ethel, the day before her death.”
“And what is vision?”
“The cup of strength, given only to those who will need its comfort.”
Then we were both silent, and for some time both unhappy, though we did not again name the circumstance.
We stayed in a boarding-house while furnishing our new home, and this occupied over two weeks, for Robert could not spare much time to assist me, though he had seen to it, that the house itself was spotlessly clean and in good order. The rest had to be mainly my work. Now, how is it, that the very same circumstances are not always equally pleasant? I could not but remember our happy furnishing in Austin ten years previously. What a joyous time it was! And there was nothing to prevent, in some measure, a renewal of this experience; there were even one or two things favorable towards making it a still more delightful one; for instance, we had more money to spend, and more certain prospects.
But it was quite different. Robert went about the matter generously and helpfully, and the result was a pretty, comfortable home, with which we were both pleased; but its making had not been the same delightful event that our Austin home represented. There had been no disagreement, no disappointment, not one untoward circumstance of any kind, but it was not the same! Why? We loved each other better than ever before; what had caused the change? Ten years? When I was alone, I could not help a few regretful tears, but alas!
“No tears can make the grass to grow
On the trampled meadows of long ago.”
Ah, if we had known that it was our last home making! The very last time we should talk together about chairs and tables, curtaining and china, how almost sacred these common household things would have become. I have not an article left of this furnishing, but a pretty Queen Anne cream pitcher. On leaving Galveston forever, I gave this pitcher to Mrs. Lee of 264 that city, as a memorial of her great kindness to me in the most terrible hours of my life. Twenty years afterwards, she sent it with a loving message back to me, knowing that it would be a relic beyond price. Surely the veil God draws between us and the future is a veil of mercy. If Robert and I had known it, how heart-breaking that furnishing would have been!
We took possession of our new home on the sixteenth of October. It was then in perfect order, and we made a gala meal of our first supper, at which all the children were present. Then there followed half-a-year of days sweet as the droppings from the honeycomb. Lilly and Calvin were at good schools, Mary was studying music, and learning how to dance, and I was busy enough with my house, with the sewing for the whole family, and with giving Alexander his first lessons. Alice though near seven years old was yet too weak to be troubled. She had been born during the excitement and terror of the beginning of the war, and she brought with her—not the fervid spirit of the time—but its exhaustion and weakness.