“We are always quiet now,” she answered softly; “friends come and go, but we are very quiet. It does me good to see you, Rosebud.”
“Does it?” her sweet eyes smiled happily. “I was longing to drop in if only to hold your hand for a minute; but I did not know exactly where to find you.”
“Why, where could I be but here?”
“I thought possibly you had removed to your husband’s home.”
For a second Ruth looked at her wonderingly; then the slow rich color mounted, inch by inch, back to her little ears till her face was one rosy cloud.
“No; I have stayed right on.”
“I saw the doctor to-day,” she chatted. “He looks pale; is he too busy?”
“I do not know,—that is, I suppose so. How are the lessons, Rose?”
“Everything is improving wonderfully; I am so happy, dear Mrs. Kemp, and what I wished to say was that all happiness and all blessings should, I pray, fall on you two who have been so much to me. Miss Gwynne told me that to do good was your birthright. She said that the funeral, with its vast gathering of friends, rich, poor, old, young, strong, and crippled of all grades of society, was a revelation of his life even to those who thought they knew him best. You should feel very proud with such sweet memories.”
“Yes,” assented Ruth, her eyes quickly suffused with tears.