“Why, this is Uncle Brian!” cried Agatha, giving the letter to her husband. He read it, laid it aside without comment, and sat thinking. She did the same. Turning, their eyes met; and they understood each other's thoughts, but apparently neither liked to speak. At last Nathanael said:
“It must have been so, though I never guessed it before.”
“But I did, though she never openly told me.”
“Well, it is a strange world!” mused the young man. “Poor Uncle Brian!”
“When do you expect him home?”
“Any day, every day. Thank God!”
“Did you not think she seemed a little better yesterday,” said Agatha hesitatingly. “Just a very little, you know.”
“A little better; is she ill? What, very ill?”—Agatha's mute answer was enough. “Oh, poor, poor Anne! And he is coming home!”
“Perhaps,” said Agatha, shocked to see her husband's emotion—“perhaps if we take great care, and she is very happy,—people must live when they are happy”—
“Few would live at all then,” was the answer, unwontedly bitter. “Better not—better not; poor Anne! It is a hard, cruel, miserable world.”