"What's the matter?" Mrs. Kemble asked, waking up.
"Nothing, my dear, only it's time for us old people to go to bed."
"Well, I own that it would be more becoming to sleep there than to reflect so unfavorably on your conversation. Of late years talk about money matters always puts me to sleep."
"That wasn't the case, was it, my dear, when we tried to stretch a thousand so it would reach from one January to another?"
"I remember," she replied, smiling and rolling up her knitting, "that we sometimes had to suspend specie payments. Ah, well, we were happy."
When left alone, it was Helen's turn to say, "Now your thoughts are wool-gathering. You don't see the fire when you look at it that way."
"No, I suppose not," replied Martine. "I'll be more frank than you. Your mother's words, 'We were happy,' left an echo in my mind. How experience varies! It is pleasant to think that there are many perfectly normal, happy lives like those of your father and mother."
"That's one thing I like in you, Hobart. You are so perfectly willing that others should be happy."
"Helen, I agree with your father. Your laugh WAS music, the sweetest I ever heard. I'm more than willing that you should be happy. Why should you not be? I have always felt that what he said was true—what he said about the right to laugh after sorrow—but it never seemed so true before. Who could wish to leave blighting sorrow after him? Who could sing in heaven if he knew that he had left tears which could not be dried on earth?"
"You couldn't," she replied with bowed head.