“So,” said Paul, “that is done.”
Dwelling-house and stables with all the livestock were saved. Barns and sheds lay in ashes.
“Now we are just as poor as we were twenty years ago,” he meditated, feeling his wounds, “and if I had not been roving about perhaps this would never have happened.”
When he entered the porch overgrown with creepers he found his mother, with folded hands, crouching in a corner. Deep lines furrowed her cheeks, and her eyes were staring into vacancy, as if she still saw the flames playing before her.
“Mother,” he cried, anxiously, for he feared that she was not far from madness.
Then she nodded a few times, and said,
“Yes, yes; such is life.”
“It will be better again, mother,” he cried.
She looked at him and smiled. It cut him to the heart, this smile.
“Your father has just turned me out,” she said; “I entreat you not to turn me out, too.”