“Softly, little girl! Your chance, indeed! Dear Eunice is far beyond all that sort of thing. She has had better teaching.”
“Yes; but Eunice would have liked it. You know she was at the seminary one of its first years. And she would have gone on. She told me the last night I was at home that it was years before she could quite give up the hope of going there again. And I don’t see why she shouldn’t. She is not thirty-two years old yet; and it was not just for young girls that the seminary was built; and—”
“My dear, Eunice has got past the need of all that. It would be like sending you and Susie back again to the old red schoolhouse, to send Eunice there.”
The doctor had cut his hickory stick, but he had not used it, and old Grey had been moving on but slowly. There was still a long hill to climb before they reached the spot where Fidelia could catch a first glimpse of home. Old Grey moved slowly still, but neither of them spoke another word till he stood still at the door.
It was a low wooden house, which had once been painted brown; but the weather-stains on the walls, and the green moss and the lichens on the roof, made its only colouring now. It had wide eaves, and many small-paned windows, and a broad porch before the door. A wild vine covered the porch and one of the windows, and the buds were beginning to show green upon it. The house stood in a large garden, which might be a pretty garden in the summer-time, but nothing had been done to it yet. The sunshine was on it, however, and it was beautiful in Fidelia’s eyes. She had lived in this old brown house more than half of the eighteen years of her life; she had been faithfully cared for and dearly loved; and there were tears in her eyes, though her face was bright, as she went in at the door.
“You are coming in, Dr Everett?” said she.
“Yes, I am coming in. Do you suppose Eunice has a glass of buttermilk for me this morning?”
“If she has not, she has got cream for you, I am quite sure,” said she, laughing.
Then they went in, and, finding no one, they went through the house to the garden beyond, where a woman with a large white sun-bonnet on her head was stooping over some budding thing at her feet. She raised herself up in a little, and came towards them, closely examining something which she held in her hand. So she did not see them till she came near the door where they stood. As she glanced up and saw them a shadow seemed to pass over her face. The doctor saw it; but Fidelia only saw the smile that chased it away.