As Eunice went on to tell how, after all, Mrs Stone had decided not to delay her departure after the day appointed, Fidelia was recalling with sorrowful amazement her troubled thoughts about Dr Justin and Miss Avery, and her doubts as to how Eunice might feel when she came to know. Neither the one nor the other, nor both together, could harm her, nor even trouble her peace. “Nor any one or anything else in the world,” she added in her heart.
“I think I am a little glad that Mrs Stone went, after all,” Eunice was saying, when Fidelia came back to the present again. “I am glad to have you to myself a little while: you must have a great deal to tell me after so long a time, and we won’t hurry over it. It is good to have you at home again.”
“It is good to be at home, though they were all very good to me in Eastwood.”
“You are not looking very rosy even yet,” said Eunice gravely.
“Oh, I am perfectly well; and so I was when I went there, only I was tired. Yes, I liked every one of them. They were all very good to me.”
“And the visitors?”
“I liked them pretty well. I envied them a little, I am afraid. It was silly of me, wasn’t it, and wicked? But I have got over it, and I don’t suppose I shall ever be exposed to the same temptation again—I mean, I have seen the last, of them, I guess—of Miss Avery at any rate. I am glad too that Mrs Stone went away for awhile, though I would like to see her. What is she like?”
“She is good, and sensible, and strong. Some people might think her hard at first not knowing her well—but she is not hard. She has been in some hard spots since she used to take care of me as a baby, and she might have grown hard and sour also, if it had not been, as she says, ‘for the grace of God.’ But, hard or not, I love her dearly. She suits me.”
“You must have been glad to see her again.”
“Yes; when she came I was glad. I was not altogether glad at the thought of her coming. I suppose I was afraid a little of the old times coming back too clearly, and that I might be troubled and unsettled by the sight of her. But it has not been so—far otherwise,” added Eunice with a smile.