Rachel ran into the house, calling Grandmother. There was no answer; but listening she heard the sound of the wheel in the big empty chamber overhead. She ran up-stairs, still calling. Grandmother was spinning wool—she loved to spin—at the great wool-wheel, stepping lightly back and forward; but at the first sound of Rachel’s voice below she stopped, and put her hand to her heart. She was standing so when the girl rushed in, panting and radiant.
“Grandmother! why didn’t you answer? didn’t you hear me?” She never waited for an answer but ran on in a torrent of speech. “Grandmother, I’ve been hateful to you, and I’m sorry. Do you hear? I’m sorry, sorry; I’m so happy now, I mean to be good, good all the time. Do you know what’s going to happen, Grandmother? guess! I’ll give you three guesses—no, I won’t, I won’t give you one! I must tell you. I am going to marry Manuel. Grandmother, are you glad? You are so good, I suppose you’ll be glad. I should hate you, I should kill you, if it were you who were going to marry Manuel. Do you know”—she caught her breath a moment, then laughed on, the laugh rippling through her speech—“do you know, Grandmother, I have been jealous of you. I’ve always been jealous I guess; first because of Grandfather—poor old Grandfather, what a pity he isn’t alive to know!—and then—and lately—oh, Grandmother, I didn’t know—I didn’t know but he might care about you. Are you laughing? it is funny, isn’t it?” But Grandmother was not laughing.
“I might have known!” the girl went on, “I needn’t have been afraid, need I, Grandmother? You aren’t like other folks, you’ve never lived; you don’t know what life is, do you, Grandmother? I’d be sorry for you if I wasn’t so glad for myself, so glad, so glad! Do you think I’m crazy? I want to kiss you, little Grandmother! What’s the matter? did my pin scratch you?”
Grandmother had given a cry as the girl flung her arms round her; a little low cry, instantly silent.
“Yes—dear,” she said quietly, but with that little flutter in her voice that one who loved her might have noticed; “I think it must have been the pin. Oh, Rachel,” she said, “I hope you will be so happy, so happy! I hope there will never be anything but happiness for you and Manuel, my dear.”
Rachel opened her dark eyes wide. “Why, of course there won’t!” she said.
“Grandmother’s all right!” she said an hour later, when she had run to meet her lover in the dewy orchard, and they were coming home together in the sunset light; “she’s all right. She didn’t say much—I don’t know as I gave her a chance, Manuel. I had so much to say myself; but she was real pleased, and wished me joy. She’s good, Grandmother is. I mean never to be hateful to her again if I can help it. How sweet those lilies smell, Manuel!”
“Is she happy, do you think?” said Manuel; it seemed to say itself, without will of his.
“Who? Grandmother? of course she is! You don’t expect her to cry all her life for an old man, do you? She’s as happy as a person can be who has never lived. Hush! hear her singing this minute!”
Yes! hear her singing, in the quiet twilight garden where she walks alone.