But she will do no such thing. She will spend her nights and mornings lamenting her widowhood. She will be present every day to see that the work goes forward on the monument.
"I might die," she says, moodily.
There will be no cessation of labor at the ascending column. It is not in the order of things here that a committee should go to Springfield to urge an unwilling public conclusion of a grateful private beginning. Money pours like water. The memorial rises. It becomes a city lion. It is worth going to see.
Society waits with becoming patience. "Inasmuch as the prominent citizens saw fit to render Esther's sorrow conspicuous," says Mrs. Grundy, "it is perfectly decent that she should remain in complete retirement."
Nevertheless notice is secretly served on the entire matrimonial world.
Esther Lockwin will soon be worth not a penny less than five million dollars!
CHAPTER IV
A KNOLLING BELL
It seems to Esther Lockwin that her night of sorrow grows heavier. The books open to her a new world of emotions. Ere her bridal veil was dyed black she had read of life and creation as inexpressibly joyous. The lesson was always that she should look upon the glories of nature and give thanks.
Now the title of each chapter is "Sorrow." The omniscient Shakespeare preaches of sorrow. The tender and beautiful Richter teaches of the nightingale. Tennyson, Longfellow, Carlyle, Beecher, Bovee, the great ancient stoics, the Bible itself, becomes a discourse on that tragic phenomenon of the soul, where peace goes out, where longing takes the place of action, where the will sets itself against the universe.