"And happy, darling?" The dear features, on which time was beginning to trace tender lines of anxiety, beamed on her daughter, with the invincible optimism that life had granted in place of bodily ease. As the wind stirred the silvery hair, Caroline noticed that it had grown a little thinner, though it was still as fine and light as spun flax. For the first time she realized that her mother possessed the beauty which is permanent and indestructible—the beauty of a fervent and dominant soul. Age could soften, but it could not destroy, the charm that was independent of physical change.
Caroline smiled brightly. "Happy to be with you, precious mother."
"Maud is in the hospital, you know, and Diana is in New York getting ready to sail. Only Margaret is left with me, and she hasn't been a bit well this winter. She is working hard over her garden."
"Yes, you wrote me. While I am here, I will help her. I want to work very hard."
"Can you stay long now? It will be such a comfort to have you. Home never seems just right when one of you is away, and now there will be three. You knew old Docia was sick, didn't you? We have had to put her daughter Perzelia in the kitchen, and she is only a field hand. The cooking isn't very good, but you won't mind. I always make the coffee and the batter bread."
"You know I shan't mind, but I must go back to work in a week or two. Somebody must keep the dear old roof mended."
Mrs. Meade laughed, and the sound was like music. "It has been leaking all winter." Then she added, while the laugh died on her lips, "Have you left Briarlay for good?"
"Yes, for good. I shall never go back."
"But you seemed so happy there?"
"I shall be still happier somewhere else—for I am going to be happy, mother, wherever I am." Though she smiled as she answered, her eyes left her mother's face, and sought the road, where the long procession of the aspens shivered like gray-green ghosts in the wind.