June 11.
I was in her room this afternoon while she was dressing. I like to watch her brush her beautiful gray hair; it quite alters her face to have it down; it seems to shrine her in like a cloud, and the outlines of her cheeks round out, and she grows young.
“I used to be proud of my hair when I was a girl,” she said with a slight blush, as she saw me looking at her; “it was all I had to be vain of, and I made the most of it. Ah well! I was dark-haired three years ago.
“O you regular old woman!” she added, smiling at herself in the mirror, as she twisted the silver coils flashing through her fingers. “Well, when I am in heaven, I shall have my pretty brown hair again.”
It seemed odd enough to hear that; then the next minute it did not seem odd at all, but the most natural thing in the world.
June 14.
She said nothing to me about the anniversary, and, though it has been in my thoughts all the time, I said nothing to her. I thought that she would shut herself up for the day, and was rather surprised that she was about as usual, busily at work, chatting with me, and playing with Faith. Just after tea, she went away alone for a time, and came back a little quiet, but that was all. I was for some reason impressed with the feeling that she kept the day in memory, not so much as the day of her mourning, as of his release.
Longing to do something for her, yet not knowing what to do, I went into the garden while she was away, and, finding some carnations, that shone like stars in the dying light, I gathered them all, and took them to her room, and, filling my tiny porphyry vase, left them on the bracket, under the photograph of Uncle Forceythe that hangs by the window.
When she found them, she called me, and kissed me.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, “and thank God too, Mary, for me. That he should have been happy,—happy and out of pain, for three long beautiful years! O, think of that!”