And now those three interminable years were gone, and Sara was coming home. She wrote him nothing of her aunt’s pleadings and reproaches and ready, futile tears; she wrote only that she would graduate in June and start for home a week later. Thenceforth Old Man Shaw went about in a state of beatitude, making ready for her homecoming. As he sat on the bench in the sunshine, with the blue sea sparkling and crinkling down at the foot of the green slope, he reflected with satisfaction that all was in perfect order. There was nothing left to do save count the hours until that beautiful, longed-for day after to-morrow. He gave himself over to a reverie, as sweet as a day-dream in a haunted valley.
The red roses were out in bloom. Sara had always loved those red roses—they were as vivid as herself, with all her own fullness of life and joy of living. And, besides these, a miracle had happened in Old Man Shaw’s garden. In one corner was a rose-bush which had never bloomed, despite all the coaxing they had given it—“the sulky rose-bush,” Sara had been wont to call it. Lo! this summer had flung the hoarded sweetness of years into plentiful white blossoms, like shallow ivory cups with a haunting, spicy fragrance. It was in honour of Sara’s home-coming—so Old Man Shaw liked to fancy. All things, even the sulky rose-bush, knew she was coming back, and were making glad because of it.
He was gloating over Sara’s letter when Mrs. Peter Blewett came. She told him she had run up to see how he was getting on, and if he wanted anything seen to before Sara came.
“No’m, thank you, ma’am. Everything is attended to. I couldn’t let anyone else prepare for Blossom. Only to think, ma’am, she’ll be home the day after to-morrow. I’m just filled clear through, body, soul, and spirit, with joy to think of having my little Blossom at home again.”
Mrs. Blewett smiled sourly. When Mrs. Blewett smiled it foretokened trouble, and wise people had learned to have sudden business elsewhere before the smile could be translated into words. But Old Man Shaw had never learned to be wise where Mrs. Blewett was concerned, although she had been his nearest neighbour for years, and had pestered his life out with advice and “neighbourly turns.”
Mrs. Blewett was one with whom life had gone awry. The effect on her was to render happiness to other people a personal insult. She resented Old Man Shaw’s beaming delight in his daughter’s return, and she “considered it her duty” to rub the bloom off straightway.
“Do you think Sary’ll be contented in White Sands now?” she asked.
Old Man Shaw looked slightly bewildered.
“Of course she’ll be contented,” he said slowly. “Isn’t it her home? And ain’t I here?”
Mrs. Blewett smiled again, with double distilled contempt for such simplicity.