So the old doctor, who knew how much more real were the ills of the spirit than any hurts of the flesh, dropped a word here and there and now no days passed that Fanny did not have callers, did not in some way get messages, the vagrant scraps and trifles of news that, so valueless in themselves, yet were to Fanny the lovely bits of fabric out of which she pieced a laughing tale of life.
Outwardly Fanny was changed. She was pale and quiet and her thick lovely hair was always smooth now and glossy and carefully dressed. It was the one thing she still could do for herself and she did it with a pitiful care. She looked ten years younger, in a way. And her house was spick and span at ten o'clock every morning now. From her chair she directed the children and because in all Green Valley there was no woman who knew better how work ought to be done it was well done. And then came the long empty hours when she sat, as she was sitting now, in her chair on the sunny side of the house where she could look at her little sea of tulips and hyacinths and drink in their perfume.
She had been trying to crochet but had dropped her needle. It lay in the grass at her feet. She could see it but she could not pick it up. She had not as yet acquired the skill and the inventive faculty of an invalid.
And so she sat there, staring at the bit of glistening steel as wave after wave of bitterness swept over her. Her tragedy was still so new that she could feel it with every breath. Every hour she was reminded of her loss by a thousand little things like this crochet hook. She was forced to sit still, her busy hands idle in her lap, while spring was calling, calling everywhere. She told herself, with a mad little laugh, that she would never again pick up anything; never again would she run through her neighbors' gates, tap on their doors and visit them in their kitchens. Never again could she hurry up the spring street with the south wind caressing her cheek. No more would she gad about to learn the doings of her little world. Would it come to talk to her, to make her laugh now that she was helpless? Was she never to hear the music of living? Was she to lose her knack of making people laugh? To lose her place in life—to live and yet be forgotten—would she have to face that?
These were some of the thoughts that were torturing poor Fanny that day. And then she gave a cry, for around the corner of the house came Nanny Ainslee in just the same old way. Grandma Wentworth and the minister were just behind her.
They stared lovingly at each other, the girl who was as lovely as life and love and springtime could make her, and the woman whom the game had broken. Then Nanny spoke—not to the broken body of Fanny Foster but to the gipsy, springtime spirit of Fanny.
"I only just came home, Fanny. I went through town and saw pretty nearly everybody, and every soul tried to tell me a little something. But it's all a jumble. So, Fanny Foster, I want you to begin with Christmas Day and tell me all that's happened in Green Valley while I've been away."
Never a word of her accident, never so much as a glance of pity at the wonderful chair. Just the old Nan Ainslee asking the old Fanny Foster for Green Valley news.
In the scarred soul of Fanny Foster, down under the bitterness and crumbled pride, something stirred, something that Fanny thought was dead forever.
Then Nanny spoke again.