Poor Aunt Gitta! she had put off, too long, her work of reparation, and now it was too late.
Too late! These are indeed the "saddest words of tongue or pen," a lower circle in the Inferno of Fate than the poet's "it might have been!" Alas! for those to whom the long sought opportunity, the ardently desired happiness comes at last, and finds the sands run down in the glass, the vital energy spent. The chance is there, but an ironical voice gives the sentence "Too late!" And alas, above all, for those, who in the sunset of life see in retrospect, the false turning, the long weary miles of the road they have followed, and which they would retrace, ere darkness fall, and the night come,—but the stern voice says: "Ye have wasted the precious years, ye have put life and strength into that which is vain, and ye would unravel the strand of the Fates and plait it up afresh when the shears of Atropos are already extended? Too late! Remorse is not reparation."
"Who shall restore the years that the locust hath eaten?"
The words sounded like a knell in the ears of Ingeborg, as she drew the sheet over her aunt's face. Ragna would have laughed a bitter laugh, but Ingeborg wept.
CHAPTER IX
"Mammina," asked Mimmo, stirring his soup with thoughtful care, "can people do just what they like, when they are big?"
Ragna was feeding Beppino out of a bowl of bread and milk. It was the usual luncheon hour, but Valentini had not yet come in, and the children chattered away, gaily.
"No," said Ragna, "no one can do exactly what he likes."
"But they can,—they does," insisted Mimmo.