"Yes," the visitor smiled again, "and all the winters, so far as I know. Mr. Wright is perfectly content."
"How about you?" asked Eliza briefly. She had gone back to her chair and frowned unconsciously into the peaceful face regarding her.
"Oh!" Mrs. Wright raised her eyebrows and gave her head a slight shake. "'In my father's house are many mansions!' I like to feel that it is all His house, even now, and that wherever I may live He is there, so why should I be lonely?"
Listening to these words, it seemed to Eliza as if some lamp, kept burning on the altar of this woman's soul, sent its steady light into the peaceful eyes regarding her.
"It's a good thing you can get comfort that way," she responded, rather awkwardly. "I know it must 'a' been a struggle to consent to it—any one used to a big city like Boston. What does your niece say to it?"
"Violet was with me a while. I am visiting her here now."
"She teaches, don't she?—the languages, or something?" inquired Eliza vaguely.
"No, gymnastic dancing and other branches of physical culture. She works hard, and no place ever rested her like the island, she thought. Do you remember Jane Foster?"
The corners of Eliza's mouth drew down in a smiling grimace of recollection.