“Is it not? I am sure you feel that it is. To you, in particular, in spite of the one great grief, life must seem like a fairy tale. I must pause in discussion of this infinite theme to remark upon your appearance, my dear. You look ravishing this morning. What a beautiful frock! I know that it has been hard for you to put away the last black ribbons. Although it is just what he would wish, it seems to you like wilfully forgetting the beloved one.”
She laid a comforting hand lightly for a moment on Rosamond’s. Rosamond, remembering the manner in which she had discarded the black-garnished, lavender dress, drooped her head quickly to hide alike the little blush of shame that tinted her cheeks and the wicked twinkle that brightened her eyes.
“It is so fortunate,” Mrs. Lee went on, “that there are no ‘styles’ in Roseborough. In Roseborough all your lovely frocks will be as fashionable now as when you bought them, four or five years ago. Miss Jenny says that she does not know what this generation is coming to, because, even in Trenton Waters, they are beginning to ask whether a garment or a ribbon is ‘in style’ before they buy it. Miss Jenny says that she has seen some of those so-called stylish hats, and garments of various kinds, and that she is willing to take her ‘solemn oath in court’—as she expressed it, being very much moved—that a few scissor-snips would have laid the whole in ruins. ‘Mrs. Lee,’ she said to me, ‘when Jenny Hackensee sews a bow on even a child’s hat, or a bone button on the band of a genteel woman’s flannel petticoat, my conscience is satisfied that it will never come off!’ Poor Miss Jenny. She fears that the Roseborough ladies may forget her worth and run after follies. My dear husband used to say that that trait was one of the charms of Roseborough—namely, the loving regard each person in the community has for the general morale.”
“Yes, that trait is very marked in Roseborough.” Again Mrs. Mearely’s drooped head hid a twinkle.
“It rejoices me to see you in that dainty lilac and white. It is just as if the fragrance and tints of spring had lingered to make midsummer more bewitching.”
“Are you going to make me vain again to-day, as you always do?”
“Nonsense, dear child. Does expatiating on the beauty of a rose or a brook make it vain? Beauty is one of heaven’s choicest gifts, and is always to be admired gratefully. How foolish must any fair woman be who allows herself to become vain—as if the beauty admired were her possession exclusively, and not a free gift to the eyes of all beholders! She might as reasonably be conceited about holding up a candle in the dusk.”
Rosamond put out a hand and stopped the knitting for the moment. “You were going to show me how perfectly life is arranged. I need to be shown.” She laughed.
“Perhaps I did, too, at your age. And I was. For I married a remarkable man and life became for me at once very simple and large—something like the process of Nature’s unfoldment under sunlight. Professor Lee’s spirit was just that—a mellow sunshine, which made for growth in those who lived within its radius. A bright and searching spirit it was; for it revealed to you the weeds as well as the grain, but in such a way that you were not hurt or humiliated; your only feeling was a sense of freedom, of relief that a danger had been pointed out, and that you had therefore escaped it.”
“Perhaps it would not be so difficult to give up one’s faults if one were told about them in that way. One would have no reason for trying to excuse them.”