“I said, Robert, that I shouldn’t blame you if you did. There isn’t much to stay here for.”
“I am sorry you have such a poor opinion of me, Aunt Jane,” said the boy gravely. “I am not quite so selfish as all that. I certainly should like to go out into the world, but I won’t go unless I can leave you comfortable.”
“I should miss you, Robert, I can’t tell how much, but I don’t want to tie you down here when you can do better. There isn’t much for me to live for—I’m an old woman already—but better times may be in store for you.”
“You are not an old woman, Aunt Jane. You are not more than fifty.”
“I am just fifty, Robert, but I feel sometimes as if I were seventy.”
“Do you know, Aunt Jane, I sometimes think that brighter days are coming to both of us? Sometimes, when I sit out there on the cliff and look out to sea, I almost fancy I can see a ship coming in laden with good things for us.”
Mrs. Trafton smiled faintly.
“I have waited a long time for my ship to come in, Robert,” she said. “I’ve waited year after year, but it hasn’t come yet.”
“It may come for all that.”
“You are young and hopeful. Yours may come in some day, but I don’t think mine ever will.”