“I am,” repeated Pauline. “I am as perfectly well as a girl can be. You know how often I told you I wanted to wash and be clean. I had my wash this morning, and it was really what I did want, for that dull feeling has left my head. I know just everything, and how I behaved, and all the rest, and I am prepared to take the bitter as well as the sweet. It is very, very sweet living here with you and Nancy, and whatever happens, you will be my friends as long as I live. And it is very bitter to think that I must tell Aunt Sophia and Verena and the rest of them the whole truth; but, bitter or not, I am going to do it, and I am going back to them, for it is right. I want to go back to them this very day. May I?”
“Yes, my lass; I understand you,” said the farmer gravely.
It was a lovely day for the time of year; although it was November, the sun shone brilliantly. Miss Tredgold stood on the lawn in front of the house and talked to Verena, who stood by her side.
“I understand all of you now, Verena,” she said, “except Pauline. I never did understand her, and I sometimes think I never shall, poor child!”
“Oh, yes, you will,” said Verena. “When Paulie comes back she will be as you never knew her—as she used to be, her sweetest and best. In some ways she is stronger and better and braver than any of us. I think she ought to make a splendid woman some day, for she has so much character and so much determination.”
“I think I have done the rest of you good by coming here; but if I have done Pauline harm, I sometimes wonder if I can ever be happy again,” said the poor lady.
“You have not done her harm. Only wait until she comes back. She is just getting the right treatment now. She felt everything so terribly that her mind was quite numb and incapable of conducting her right for a time; but wait until she returns.”
“Day after day I long and hope for her return,” said Miss Tredgold, “but day after day there is a fresh excuse.”
“And yet you say you want her to return,” said Verena. “Oh, aunty, aunty! who is this coming up the path? Here she is—Paulie herself; and Nancy is following her, and there is Farmer King. They have entered by the wicket-gate and are coming up through the plantation. Oh, look, look! And she is well. I know by the way she walks, by the way she runs, by the way she smiles. She is as well as ever she was in all her life.”