A drop from the vast spirit-cloud of God,
That rounds upon a stock, a stone, a leaf,
A moment, then exhales again to God.”
“My mother’s writing, I know! What a difference in our dispositions! Where do you suppose I got my cheerful temperament from? Not from my father?” And again she faintly shuddered.
“Your father’s desk is in the other room,” commented somebody. Looking up she laid the book softly down and prepared to leave the one spot in the house of which she had any remembrance. “I shall hate to see this dust removed, or these articles touched. Do you think I could be allowed to do the first handling? It is so like a sacrilege to give it over to some stranger.”
But Clarke shook his head. “I have let you come with us into this damp house because it seemed only proper that your eyes should be the first to meet its desolation. I shall not let you remain here one moment after we are gone. If I were willing, Dr. Izard would not be; so do not think of it again.”
The name of the doctor seemed to awaken in her a strange chain of thought.
“Ah, Dr. Izard! He was standing beside my father when he closed my mother’s eyes. Why did he not come with me this morning to see me open the house? I begged him to do so but he declined quite peremptorily.”
“Dr. Izard does not like me,” remarked Clarke sententiously.
“Does not like you? Why?” queried Polly innocently, pausing on the threshold they were crossing.