Going to the closet, which was built into one corner of the wall, Virginia unpinned a long white sheet scented with rose-leaves, and brought out a filmy mass of satin and lace. Her face as she looked down upon it was the face of girlhood incarnate. All her virginal dreams clustered there like doves quivering for flight. Its beauty was the beauty of fleeting things—of the wind in the apple blossoms at dawn, of the music of bees on an August afternoon.
"Mother wouldn't let me be married in anything but satin," she said, with a catch in her voice. "I believe it is the first time in her life she was ever extravagant, but she felt so strongly about it that I had to give in and not have white muslin as I wanted to do."
"And it's so lovely," said Susan. "I had no idea Miss Willy could do it. She's as proud, too, as if it were her own."
"She took a pleasure in every stitch, she told me. Oh, Susan, I sometimes feel that I haven't any right to be so happy. I seem to have everything and other women to have nothing."
For the first time Susan smiled, but it was a smile of understanding. "Perhaps they have more than you think, darling."
"But there's Miss Willy—what has she ever got out of life?"
"Well, I really believe she gets a kind of happiness out of saving up the money to pay for her tombstone. It's a funny thing, but the people who ought to be unhappy, somehow never are. It doesn't seem to be a matter of what you have, but of the way you are born. Now, according to us, Miss Willy ought to be miserable, but the truth is that she isn't a bit so. Mother saw her once skipping for pure joy in the spring."
"But people who haven't things can't be as grateful to God as those who have. I feel that I'd like to spend every minute of my life on my knees thanking Him. I don't see how I can ever have a disappointed or a selfish thought again. I wonder if you can understand, you precious Susan, but I want to open my arms and take the whole world into them."
"Jinny," said Susan suddenly, "don't spoil Oliver."
"I couldn't—not if I tried every minute."