"We've been out of our heads a good many years, mother, haven't we?" said
Mr. Clifford, laughing.
"Well," said Leonard, "I just hope Amy will catch the disease, and have it very bad some day."
"Thank you. When I do, I'll send for Dr. Marvin."
A few days later Webb took her to New York, and left her with her friend. "Don't be persuaded into staying very long," he found opportunity to say, in a low tone.
"Indeed I won't; I'm homesick already;" and she looked after him very wistfully. But she was mistaken. Gertrude looked so hurt and disappointed when she spoke of returning, and had planned so much, that days lengthened into weeks.
CHAPTER LIX
THE HOSE REVEALS ITS HEART
Webb returned to a region that was haunted. Wherever he went, a presence was there before him. In every room, on the lawn, in the garden, in lanes no longer shaded, but carpeted with brown, rustling leaves, on mountain roads, he saw Amy with almost the vividness of actual vision, as he had seen her in these places from the time of her first coming. At church he created her form in her accustomed seat, and his worship was a little confused. She had asked him to write, and he made home life and the varying aspects of nature real to her. His letters, however, were so impersonal that she could read the greater part of them to Gertrude, who had resolved to be pleased out of good-will to Webb, and with the intention of aiding his cause. But she soon found herself expressing genuine wonder and delight at their simple, vigorous diction, their subtile humor, and the fine poetic images they often suggested. "Oh, Amy," she said, "I couldn't have believed it. I don't think he himself is aware of his power of expression."
"He has read and observed so much," Amy replied, "that he has much to express."
"It's more than that," said Gertrude; "there are touches here and there which mere knowledge can't account for. They have a delicacy and beauty which seem the result of woman's influence, and I believe it is yours. I should think you would be proud of him."