For awhile the two sat in silence, their busy fingers and the placid movement of their rocking-chairs keeping up a kind of rhythmical flow of action as soothing as the “creen” of the tidal ebb and flow on a pebbly shore.
“Grandma,” said Alice somewhat suddenly, letting her work fall on her lap, “I can’t get out of my head what you said about the ill-luck in removing one’s wedding-ring. George says that it is all an old superstition, and one quite exploded now; but when he leaves me to myself I get quite frightened about it—so, if you don’t mind, dear, I wish you would tell me just what happened after you took off your ring.”
“Alice, dearest, I wish you would forget all about it; your husband is quite right, it is just an old superstition.”
But Alice was not to be turned from her inquiry, and with gentle feminine persistency she shook her pretty head, implying that life would be a burden to her until this terrible affair was cleared up.
“Please, grannie,” was the extent of her audible entreaty, but her eyes contained a fervor of appeal which was entirely irresistible, and the old lady, who had by long experience learned the wisdom of an early capitulation to the “little gray eyes,” as she called her grandchild, surrendered with a sigh of protest.
As she removed her spectacles from her face she became aware of a strangely intent look suddenly visible on the face of her grand-daughter, who was looking at a clump of trees in the distance.
“What do you see, dear?” she inquired.
“I saw a figure in the copse yonder, which I fancied I recognized, but I must have been mistaken, and the person, whoever he was, has gone away?”
“Was he looking this way?”
“Yes, grandma, and I imagined for a moment that he was beckoning to me, but of course that could not be.”