So I talked on and on, and she listened seriously and kindly, sometimes with her head drooping a little, other times proudly, with her little gold-bound glasses raised. I could see that she suffered horribly when I told of how my sweet mother and I had struggled on, how we had gone hungry and cold and had had to associate with drunken, coarse, cruel people. But I told her everything. I seemed to owe that much to my little mother.
Then, after a long time, I finished. She looked at me with a strange, sad, wistful air that made me, for all her pride, think of a child who had done wrong and who wished to be forgiven.
“I am sorry,” she said, “that you did not know your father, Azalea. You would have loved him. No one could help loving him. Please, for my sake, do not hate his memory.”
“No, no,” I answered, “I will not hate him, or anyone. I haven’t time to hate anyone.”
Just then a beautiful sound stole through the room. I could not tell what it was or where it came from, but grandmother smiled at my surprise and told me that it was only the dinner gong. So she arose and said:
“Your arm, Azalea, please,” and we went down the long drawing-room together, and when we reached the door the old butler threw wide the leaves of it for us, and we crossed the great corridor and went to the dining room. It was all glittering with silver and glass and shining with white linen and glowing with flowers, and there was the butler and a man to help him, and Martha, grandmother’s own woman, to stand behind her chair.
Try to think of your own rough and ready Azalea, sitting there amid that grandeur, acting as if she were used to it. But it is asking too much of you, isn’t it, honey? Everyone talked very softly, and when they laughed they seemed to do so rather cautiously, and the servants moved about as if it would be a terrible crime to make a noise, though I could see perfectly well by the expression of their faces, that they took an interest in everything. Of course we had delicious things to eat. There was some kind of a frozen dessert that Aunt Lorena said was made in my honor.
“We have this only on notable occasions,” she declared.
After dinner we went back to the drawing-room again, and my grandmother asked me to sing. So I did, but not very well, and she asked me to dance, and I did that, too, with Aunt Lorena playing for me. But I don’t believe I danced very well either. Making up a solo dance as you go along isn’t easy, is it, Carin? But at any rate, grandmother seemed pleased, and I am sure it helped her to pass the evening. The last hour I sat beside her, telling her stories of Mother McBirney and all my friends, and she kept her hand on my arm, and now and then cried to Uncle David:
“Isn’t it incredible that we have found her? Isn’t she the picture of your brother Jack?”