“Well, I wish you’d look at that! Even trying to patch her poor old nightgown for her! Can you beat that? Here, child, give it to me. My hands are full with this tray, so just stick it under my arm. I’ll mend it this afternoon while I’m setting talking to the company.”
She tightened her grip on the bundle which Georgina thrust under her arm, and looked down at it.
“Them pitiful old stiff fingers of his’n!” she exclaimed. “They sure make a botch of sewing, but they don’t ever make a botch of being kind. Well, I’m off now. Guess you’d better run in and set with Mis’ Darcy for a spell, for she’s waked up real natural and knowing now, and seems to crave company.”
Georgina went, but paused on the way, seeing the familiar rooms in a new light, since Mrs. Saggs’ remarks had given her new and illuminating insight. Everywhere she looked there was something as eloquent as that bit of unfinished mending to bear witness that Uncle Darcy was far more than just a weather-beaten old man with a smile and word of cheer for everybody. Ringing the Towncrier’s bell and fishing and blueberrying and telling yarns and helping everybody bear their trouble was the least part of his doings. That was only what the world saw. That was all she had seen herself until this moment.
Now she was suddenly aware of his bigness of soul which made him capable of an infinite tenderness and capacity to serve. His devotion to Aunt Elspeth spread an encircling care around her as a great oak throws the arms of its shade, till her comfort was his constant thought, her happiness his greatest desire.
“Them pitiful, old, stiff fingers of his’n!” How could Mrs. Saggs speak of them so? They were heroic, effectual fingers. Theirs was something far greater than the Midas touch--they transmuted the smallest service into Love’s gold.
Georgina, with her long stretching up to books that were “over her head,” understood this without being able to put it into words. Nor could she put into words the longing which seized her like a dull ache, for _Barby_ to be loved and cared for like that, to be as constantly and supremely considered. She couldn’t understand how Aunt Elspeth, old and wrinkled and childish, could be the object of such wonderful devotion, and Barby, her adorable, winsome Barby, call forth less.
“Not one letter in four long months,” she thought bitterly.
“Dan’l,” called Aunt Elspeth feebly from the next room, and Georgina went in to assure her that Uncle Darcy was _not_ out in the boat and would not be brought home drowned. He was attending to some important business and would be back bye and bye. In the meantime, she was going to hang her prism in the window where the sun could touch it and let the rainbow fairies dance over the bed.
The gay flashes of color, darting like elfin wings here and there as Georgina twisted the ribbon, pleased Aunt Elspeth as if she were a child. She lifted a thin, shriveled hand to catch at them and gave a weak little laugh each time they eluded her grasp. It was such a thin hand, almost transparent, with thick, purplish veins standing out on it. Georgina glanced at her own and wondered if Aunt Elspeth’s ever could have been dimpled and soft like hers. It did not seem possible that this frail old woman with the snowy-white hair and sunken cheeks could ever have been a rosy child like herself. As if in answer to her thought, Aunt Elspeth spoke, groping again with weak, ineffectual passes after the rainbows.