“As ready as I ever shall be, I suppose,” I replied. “If the guardian angel who has pulled me through this far will hold on to his job, I'll do my part.”
Mrs. Knapp raised a melancholy smile, but it disappeared at once, and she seemed to muse in silence, with no very pleasant thought on her mind. Twice or thrice I thought she wished to speak to me, but if so she changed her mind.
I ventured a few observations that were intended to be jocose, but she answered in the monosyllables of preoccupation, and I turned to Luella.
She gave back flashes of brightness, but I saw on her face the shadow of her mother's melancholy, and I rose at an early hour to take my leave.
“I wonder at you,” said Luella softly, as we stood alone for a moment.
“You have little cause.”
“What you have done is much. You have conquered difficulties.”
I looked in her calm eyes, and my soul came to the surface.
“I wish you might be proud of me,” I said.
“I—I am proud of such a friend—except—” She hesitated.