[XLI]
"Ah!—This is comfortable!"
He had taken his tea from her and was sipping it slowly. He looked about the great room, lighted with high candles in the massive silver sticks, and at the soft folds of curtains that shut out the storm.
"You don't know what a lonely place it is!— With no one here!" He shivered, and then looked contentedly at Aunt Jane drinking her tea.
"Places generally are lonely," she responded. "It takes folks—not to be lonely.... Most of us need folks, I guess."
"I need them!" said Medfield emphatically. "And I didn't know it—how lonely I was.... I knew I was beastly unhappy!" He leaned forward and seemed to be looking at his unhappiness in the fire that glowed on the hearth and danced in the flames and flew away up the chimney.
"That's over!" he said. He leaned back happily in his chair, watching the flames.