Presently he took his leave, promising to return in a few days for his belongings.
After the door had closed behind him, she looked down at the cat, who had awakened from another nap at the stir of the departure.
He rubbed against her brown calico skirt as she lighted the gas; then she moved thoughtfully to the mantelpiece and turned the sketches about.
"Mary Sidney," she mused, looking at the graceful head of Phil's mother, "you've had your heartache, and your sacrifices. You've been most pulled in two, between longin' to stay with your husband and follow your son—you told me somethin' of it in your note thankin' for the brooch. Nobody escapes, Mary Sidney. I guess I haven't done you justice, seein' you've raised a boy like that."
Turning to the sketch of the storm-beaten tree, she clasped her hands before it. "Dear one," she mused tenderly, "you loved him. You was great. You died not knowin' how great you were; and you won't care if I do understand this kind better, 'cause all America's too ignorant for you, and I'm one o' the worst."
Her eyes dwelt lingeringly on the sketch. She fancied she could hear the wind whistling through the writhing branches. "It looks like my life," she thought, "risin' out o' the mist and the cloud."
She gazed at it in silence, then turned to the destroyed photograph. She seized the pieces quickly and turned them face up. The rent had missed the chin and cut across the collar. She regarded the face wistfully. The cat stretched his forepaws up her skirt until he was of a preternatural length. It was supper-time.
"I wonder, Pluto," she said slowly, "if I couldn't fit that into a minicher frame. Some of 'em come real reasonable."