"Kathie," I said, almost severely, "you know you are talking nonsense. Come into the house, and have a glass of milk and a slice of cake. You'll feel better after you've had something to eat."
She looked at me with eyes really wild, and without a word turned quickly and ran down the street at full speed, leaving me utterly confounded. I am sure she acts to herself, and that her religious mania is partly theatrical; but then I suppose religious mania always is. Yet it has a basis in what she believes, and with her imaginative, hysterical temperament she has the power of taking up her ideas so completely that she gets to be almost beside herself. When she is so much in earnest she must be treated, I suppose, as if all her self-accusations and agony of mind were entirely real.
August 8. I have been to lay a bunch of sweet-peas on Mother's grave. I wonder and wonder again if she knows when I am so near the place where we left her, the place where it always seems to me some life must yet linger. I have all my life been familiar with the doubt whether any consciousness, any personality survives death; and yet it is as natural to assume that life goes on as it is to suppose the sun will rise to-morrow. I know that my feeling proves nothing; but still instinctively I cling to it.
In any case there is the chance the dead are alive and alert somewhere in the shadows, and if they are they must be glad not to be forgotten. I should not be willing to take the chance, and neglect the grave of one who had been fond of me. Mother loved me as I loved her; and this decides I shall run no risk of her being unhappy after death in the thought that I have forgotten.
I suppose I cling to a feeling that there must be some sort of immortality largely from the loneliness I feel. The idea of never seeing Father or Mother again is more than I could endure. Father used to say that after all each of us is always really alone in this world, and even our best friends can no more come close to us than if they did not exist; but this always seemed to me a sort of cold, forlorn theory. The warmth of human companionship somehow makes it impossible for me to feel anything like this. When I said so to Father, I remember he smiled, and said he was glad I did find it impossible.
One thing I am sure of to the very bottom of my heart: that things are somehow completely right, so that whatever death means it must be part of a whole which is as it should be.
August 10. To-day Tom brought me a bunch of cardinal-flowers. He had been up to the Lake Meadows, he said, and thought I might like them. The whole parlor is alive with the wonderful crimson—no, scarlet, of the great flaming armful of blossoms. Tom used to get them for me when I was a girl, but since those days I have had only a stray spike now and then. They bring back the past, and the life-long friendship I have had with Tom. I wonder sometimes why I have never been in love with Tom. Life never seemed complete without him. In the years he kept away on account of George I missed him sorely, and more than once I have thought of all sorts of ways to bring things back to the former footing; only I knew all the time it was of no use. It is the greatest comfort to have the old friendship back, and now Tom must understand that I have no more than friendship to give him. It would be vexing if he should misunderstand, but I must take care he does not.
August 11. I have been at the Town Hall helping to make ready for a raspberry festival, to raise money for the church. Miss Charlotte came after me, and of course I had to go. She said all that was wanted was my taste to direct about decorating the hall, but I have been told so before, and I knew from experience that taste is expected to work out its own salvation. To be really fair I suppose I should say I cannot stand by and give directions, but have to take hold with my own hands, so it is nobody's fault but my own if I do things. Besides, it is really good fun among the neighbors, with the air full of the smell of cedar, with all the pretty young girls making wreaths and laughing while they work, and with your feet tangled in evergreens and laurel whenever you cross the floor. Miss Charlotte is in her element at such a time. Her great-throated laugh, as strong as a man's, rings out, and she seems for the time quite happy and jolly with excitement.
It came over me to-day almost with a sense of dismay how old I seem to the young girls. They treated me with a sort of respect which couldn't be put into words exactly, I suppose, but which I felt. Somehow I believe the breaking of my engagement has made me seem older to them. Perhaps it is my foolish fancy, but I seem to see that while I was engaged I had still for them a hold on youth which I have now lost. I suppose they never thought it out, but I know they feel now that I am very much their senior.