"I might learn a great deal," she said, "if I persevered. I have so much time."
But she had not read many pages before the tears began to roll down her cheeks.
"If he had lived," she said, "I might have read them to him and it would have pleased him so. I might have done it often if I had thought less about myself. He would have learned, too. He thought he was slow, but he would have learned, too, in a little while, and he would have been so proud."
She was very like her father in the simple tenderness of her nature. She grieved with the hopeless passion of a child for the unconscious wrong she had done.
It was as she sat trying to fix her mind upon these books that there came to her the first thought of a plan which was afterwards of some vague comfort to her. She had all the things which had furnished the old parlor taken into one of the unused rooms—the chairs and tables, the carpet, the ornaments and pictures. She spent a day in placing everything as she remembered it, doing all without letting any one assist her. After it was arranged she left the room, and locked the door taking the key with her.
"No one shall go in but myself," she said. "It belongs to me more than all the rest."
"I never knowed her to do nothin' notionate but thet," remarked Mrs. Nance, in speaking of it afterwards. "She's mighty still, an' sits an' grieves a heap, but she aint never notionate. Thet was kinder notionate fer a gal to do. She sets store on 'em 'cos they was her pappy's an' her ma's, I reckon. It cayn't be nothin' else, fur they aint to say stylish, though they was allers good solid-appearin' things. The picters was the on'y things es was showy."
"She's mighty pale an' slender sence her pappy died," said the listener.
"Wa-al, yes, she's kinder peak-ed," admitted Mrs. Nance. "She's kinder peak-ed, but she'll git over it. Young folks allers does."
But she did not get over it as soon as Mrs. Nance had expected, in view of her youth. The days seemed longer and lonelier to her as the winter advanced, though they were really so much shorter, and she had at last been able to read and think of what she read. When the snow was on the ground and she could not wander about the place she grew paler still.