"Perhaps you need pipes like the doctor," I suggested.
"Oh, no, that would uproot the old shrubs, and besides, I am tired of it, I think."
She was lying on the couch in her sitting-room, a pile of novels on a table beside her, and the delicacy in her appearance, the transparent fineness of her features, of her hands, awoke in me the feeling of anxiety I had felt so often during the year after little Benjamin's death.
"I'm sorry I can't get up to luncheon now, darling, but we are making a big railroad deal. What have you been doing all day long by yourself?"
She looked up at me, and I remembered the face of Miss Matoaca, as I had seen it against the red firelight on the afternoon when Sally and I had gone in to tell her of our engagement.
"I didn't go out," she answered. "It was raining so hard that I stayed by the fire."
"You've been lying here all day alone?"
"Bonny Page came in for a few minutes."
"Have you read?"
"No, I've been thinking."