"I try to," said Peace, smiling. "You go in rather a hurry, don't you Joy?"
"Yes. It's just a week since father came. He wants to stay a while longer, dreadfully, but he says his business at home can't be put off, and of course I'm going with him. Do you know, Peace, I can't bear to have him out of the room five minutes, I'm so silly. It seems all the time as if I were dreaming a real beautiful dream, and when I woke up, the awful days would come back, and he'd be dead again. I keep wanting to kiss him and feel of him all the time."
"You poor child!" said Peace, her eyes dimming a little, "how strange it all has been. How good He's been to you—God."
"I know it. I know He has, Peace. Wasn't it queer how it all came about? Gypsy says nobody but God could have managed it so, and Auntie says He must have had some very good reason.
"You see, father was sick all that time in a little out-of-the-way French town with not a single soul he knew, and nobody to talk English, and so sick he couldn't write a word—out of his head, he says, all the time. That's why I didn't hear, nor the firm. Then wasn't it so strange about that man who was murdered at St. Pierre?—the very same name—George Breynton, only it was George W. instead of George M.; but that they didn't find out till afterwards. Poor man! I wonder if he has anybody crying for him over here. Then you know, just as soon as ever father got well enough to travel, he started straight home. He said he'd had enough of Europe, and if he ever lived to get home, he wouldn't go another time without somebody with him. It wasn't so very pleasant, he said, to come so near dying with nobody round that you knew, and not to hear a word of your own language. Then, you know, he got into Boston Saturday, and he hurried straight up here; but the train only went as far as Rutland, and stopped at midnight. Then, you see, he was so crazy to see me and let me know he wasn't dead, he couldn't possibly wait; so he hired a carriage and drove all the way over Sunday. And oh, Peace, when I saw him out there in the entry!"
"I guess you said your prayers that night," said Peace, smiling.
"I rather guess I did! And Peace, that makes me think"—Joy grew suddenly very grave; there was an earnest, thoughtful look in her eyes that Joy's eyes did not have when she first came to Yorkbury; a look that they had been slowly learning all this year; that they had been very quickly learning these past few weeks—"When I get home it's going to be hard—a good many things are going to be hard."
"Yes, I see," said Peace, musingly. Peace always seemed to see just what other people were living and hoping and fearing, without any words from them to explain it.
"It's all so different from what it is here. I don't want to forget what you've told me and Auntie's told me. Almost everybody I know at home doesn't care for what you do up here in Yorkbury. I used to think about dancing-school, and birthday parties, and rigging up, and summer fashions, and how many diamonds I'd have when I was married, and all that, the whole of the time, Peace—the whole of it; then I got mad when my dresses didn't fit, and I used to strike Therése and Kate, if you'll believe it—when I was real angry that was. Now, up here, somehow I'm ashamed when I miss at school; then sometimes I help Auntie a little, and sometimes I do try not to be cross. Now, you see, I'm going back, and father he thinks the world of me, and let's me do everything I want to, and I'm afraid"—Joy stopped, puzzled to express herself—"I'm afraid I shall do everything I want to."
Peace smiled, and seemed to be thinking.