My heart was too full to answer her. Seeing how it was, she slipped away, and, strolling out of sight with her face to the eastern hills, left me alone.
And yet I did not seem alone. The low branches swept with a little soft sigh across the grave; the May-flowers wrapped me in with fragrance thick as incense; the tiny sparrow turned her soft eyes at me over the edge of the nest, and chirped contentedly; the “blessed sunshine” talked with me as it touched the edges of the ivy-leaves to fire.
I cannot write it even here, how these things stole into my heart and hushed me. If I had seen him standing by the stainless cross, it would not have frightened or surprised me. There—not dead or gone, but there—it helps me, and makes me strong!
“Mamie! little Mamie!”
O Roy, I will try to bear it all, if you will only stay!
VIII.
May 20.
The nearer the time has come for Aunt Winifred to go, the more it has seemed impossible to part with her. I have run away from the thought like a craven, till she made me face it this morning, by saying decidedly that she should go on the first of the week.
I dropped my sewing; the work-basket tipped over, and all my spools rolled away under the chairs. I had a little time to think while I was picking them up.
“There is the rest of my visit at Norwich to be made, you know,” she said, “and while I am there I shall form some definite plans for the summer; I have hardly decided what, yet. I had better leave here by the seven o’clock train, if such an early start will not incommode you.”