“Ye see,” she went on, “accordin’ to Davy’s count, it’s the Lord that does things.”
“Maybe he’s right,” said Marcia Haddon slowly. “Which one of us shall say?”
“Well,” said Granny Williams after a while, thrusting her needles through her ball of yarn, “Ef I was ye, I wouldn’t bother much about nothin’ fer a time yit. Ye got plenty of money anyways—yore man was plumb rich, accordin’ to all I hear. Like enough he done lef ye a thousand dollar, Ma’am? Davy’s tolt me about how ye an’ him lived. But ontel ye git ready to go home, Ma’am, ye’re welcome here, jest as welcome as the flowers, an’ as long as ye like.
“When ye kin begin to walk around a bit,” she concluded, “we’ll take ye an’ show ye whar we buried yore man. Hit’s up in the old buryin’ ground on the hill—my folks is buried thar, an’ my daddy’s folks, years an’ years back, an’ plenty of others—fifty or maybe a hundred year, fer’s I kin tell. Hit’s right qu’ite an’ purty up thar.”
CHAPTER XXII
WHEN GHOSTS ARISE
MARCIA HADDON’S lawyers wrote with greater and greater insistence from New York, asking her return to care for the matters of the estate of James Haddon, but she still shrank from the thought of going back to the old associations. A strange apathy encompassed her, a leaden indifference to life, as though all were ended for her as well as for the unfortunate lying yonder on the hill. She found nothing in life to interest her, to offer her any hope, to excite in her any ambition. “I’m useless, useless!” said she to herself more than once. She held her own life in review now, day after day, feeling herself unworthy and forsaken, herself too merciless a critic of herself.
Joslin she saw frequently. His visits were quiet, unobtrusive, almost apologetic. He was very sad, and always taciturn, but she often looked forward to his coming with something to ask him, something to discuss.