“No.” Virginia was determined that no ray of light should brighten the dark picture she was painting. “When Charles Augustus proposes, unless the crutch is near, he can’t get from his knees.”
Helen conceded the point by a helpless nod. “It won’t be a bit romantic. It will be pathetic,” she whispered.
“Not if the girl loves him truly. Not if he is the answer to the call of her heart.”
“He would be the Knight of her thoughts then,–the Prince of her dreams,” interjected Helen, the sentimental.
“With a crutch. He will rest on it even at his wedding.”
“When they go away on their wedding trip, the rice and old shoes will beat against it,” groaned Helen.
“It will be at his bedside when he dies.” Virginia’s eyes filled with tears. “Were he a soldier it would be a badge of honor–a mark of patriotic suffering; but poor Charles Augustus was always that way and must always remain so unless some one will pay for an operation.” Virginia buried her tear-drowned eyes in her handkerchief.
The sympathetic Helen succumbed to the prevailing sorrow of the occasion and wept also.
From her watch tower at the kitchen window, Aunt Kate espied the sorrowing ones. “My sakes alive, what has got into those girls?” she exclaimed. “They must be hankering for a funeral.” Hastening forth, she planted herself before them and viewed the weepers with stern eyes. “What is all of this crying about?” she demanded.
They told her, abating no jot or tittle of gloom.