“And,” I added, “you certainly have a most willing one in me. I am only too glad to hear that you may have to say, and am more than pleased that you are inclined to talk so freely of yourself.”
“Yes,” she continued, somewhat meditatively, “I have decided that if there is anything in my enforced invalidism that can be turned into a joy, I am resolved to make it so. But at first you don’t know how hard it was not to feel envious, disheartened, cross and fretful, until, as I have said, I suddenly woke up and found that there was much for my brain and hands to do if only the heart gave them the right impulse. So the good people here give me what I ask for, within reason, and I spend my time thinking, planning and studying to give of whatever in myself is worth the giving. Fortunately, Mr. Andrews being a doctor, insures for me the best of care. Also, one of the ladies here has been and is a most excellent trained nurse and is kindness itself to me. Her generous consideration of my welfare, and constant help and attention are a boon and solace to my heart. All women have their vanities and weaknesses you know,” she jestingly concluded.
“May I ask how you employ the hours to make the time slip by with other than lagging footsteps?”
“Certainly,” Miss Delancey answered. “Being a woman and an invalid I one day bethought me of the many who were afflicted likewise, but not so happily situated, and I immediately tried to think what I could do and how I could do it to make the days less weary for them as, perhaps, they too lay in bed, unable to be up and doing. So I have taken from various magazines and papers attractive pictures and good literature, and from these the younger unfortunates have made small books, not too heavy, with carefully arranged pages of different colored muslins. It has been a pleasure also to select a short piece of poetry and search for a picture or two to illustrate it. Again, I have taken prose writings and, having a little ability for sketching, have drawn on white muslin, pictures which I thought might make the story more readable. I have made a number of such books for old and young, sending them far and wide, and many are the letters of thanks I have received and wept over, realizing from their tone that the writers had little idea that the maker of the books was herself a cripple. Then too, I can sew fairly well and knit, so the variation resulting from these occupations[occupations], besides reading and studying for my own benefit, has given me plenty of employment and sometimes I almost forget that I can’t walk and dance as many of my age like to do.”
“Would that I could make you a sort of traveling object lesson in the study of patience and submission,” I said, fearing not to give offense by this remark, “for it seems to me that there are many persons blessed with abundance of strength and health who could learn much from you and make their own lives and the lives of those about them much happier. But am I not staying too long, and, if you will pardon the question, may I ask how you get your meals or join in the other activities of the household?”
“If you only knew how glad I am to have you,” she cordially responded, “you would not ask if you were staying too long. But in reply to your other question,” she continued, “it is easy enough. The lady whom I have mentioned, Mrs. Marvin (and by the way I hope you will meet her and learn more of her) seems never to forget me, and either comes herself or sends some one else, if something specially interesting is going on downstairs, and at meal times it rests with myself as to whether I shall be taken down or eat up here. Another young lady of almost my own age has the next room and next to hers is Mrs. Marvin’s chamber. Our rooms open into a fourth which serves as a little individual sitting-room for all three and this we have most cosily arranged. We can even have our own musicales, for the young lady plays the guitar and I the mandolin, and we have many pleasant hours with ourselves and any others who come to spend their leisure with us. To hear the laughter and ripple of talk that emanates from here would hardly lead one to think that such a poor one as I was among the number.”
As we were thus talking, a pleasant-faced woman entered the room after a gentle rap, which must have been hers individually, because Miss Delancey seemed to know who it was immediately.
“I am so glad you came just now, Mrs. Marvin,” she said, “as I was anxious that I, particularly, should have the pleasure of making you acquainted with our new friend here, which I do gladly.”
Mrs. Marvin’s gracious manners and genuine cordiality stamped her as the sort of “spirit” one could never weary of, and I marveled not at Miss Delancey’s affection for her.
She impressed me as the sort of woman to whom one would feel free to go for sympathy and advice and who could be relied on. Though she was not young, you could see in the smile on her lips, the brightness of her eyes, and the elasticity of her movements that she had taken life aright,—growing into womanhood with all that maturity of years and judgment means, yet not failing to remember that we can keep the heart young and so carry with us, notwithstanding advancing years, the beautiful attributes of noble womanhood, even as the rose in its full bloom has yet all the sweet fragrance of the opening bud.