"Yes. Kate's most kind, allowing me to share her bed. I fear I'm a plague to her, I'm that restless, but she says not."
"I believe there's another bed in the attic that we could bring down, if she wishes."
"Ben's?"
"Oh, no! That hath remained in Reuben's room—their room, I'd rather say. I don't know that Reuben ever said anything of it, but—you can imagine no one of us would suggest taking it out."
"Of course. I spoke something foolish. I do so often."
"Not at all. It is—may I say this, Charity?—a blessing, that you do come to us here. In this house we are, all but Reuben—oh, how shall I say it?—old, dusty, something discouraged perhaps. There was so much of youth and gaiety, the which we took for granted when we had it, when Ben was here, the two of them alway in some harmless commotion or other—why, merely to hear them talk together was—was.... What are you sewing, Charity? Something for the—for what I believe fair young maids do call a bride chest?"
"I am no-way fair, Mr. Hibbs. And—honestly now, doth this appear to you like an item of female apparel?"
"Oh! Marry it don't, now you hold it up—you had it bunched under your hand so I couldn't see."
"A nightshirt of Mr. Kenny's, and I only trust I may mend this hole so it won't chafe him. He wears them out in the back, you see, lying on them constantly, and—oh, the fidgeting that's all he's able to do. I pray you, Mr. Hibbs, would you sit the other side of the lamp? You're in peril of my elbow, besides shutting off the light."
"Of course—clumsy of me.... How deftly your little hands do work at whatever they find, Charity!... Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora...."