CHAPTER V
ELIZA'S INVITATION
For the first time since she had been left alone, Eliza drank her tea that night without tears; and no lump in her throat prevented her swallowing the egg she had boiled.
She held Mrs. Ballard's watch in her hand a minute before getting into bed; and looked long at its gold face, and listened to its loud and busy ticking.
"Forgive me, Mrs. Ballard," she thought; and association added, "as we forgive our debtors!"
"No, I can't!" she muttered fiercely. "I can't! What's the use o' pretendin'!"
Muffling the watch in its slipper, she turned out the gas and got into bed. Composing herself to sleep more peacefully than she had been able to do for many a night, her last thought was of Mrs. Ballard's heir; and a sense of comfort stole over her in the very fact of his existence. Again she seemed to feel the sympathetic pressure of his kind hand.
"He thinks she may be paintin' still," she reflected. "She's got colors to work with that's most blindin', they're so gorgeous, if we can judge anything by the sunsets at the island. Why not think so! It's just as reasonable as playin' harps, for all I can see."
Ever since her dear one's passing, Eliza had felt too crushed and too wicked to pray; and being unable to say the whole of her Lord's Prayer, her New England conscience would not allow her to say any of it; but to-night a sense of hope and gratitude lightened the darkness, and a new gentleness crept over her countenance as it relaxed its lines in slumber.