“Do you think it is very like him?” asked she.
“Well,” said Mr Snow, meditatively, “it’s like him and it ain’t like him. I love to look at it, anyhow.”
“At first it puzzled me,” said Rose. “It seemed like the picture of some one I had seen in a dream; and when I shut my eyes, and tried to bring back my father’s face as it used to be in Merleville, it would not come—the face of the dream came between.”
“Well, there is something in that,” said Mr Snow, and he paused a moment, and shut his eyes, as if to call back the face of his friend. “No, it won’t do that for me. It would take something I hain’t thought of yet, to make me forget his face.”
“It does not trouble me now,” said Rose. “I can shut my eyes, and see him, Oh! so plainly, in the church, and at home in the study, and out under the trees, and as he lay in his coffin—” She was smiling still, but the tears were ready to gush over her eyes. Mr Snow turned, and laying his hand on her bright head, said softly,—
“Yes, dear, and so can I, If we didn’t know that it must be right, we might wonder why he was taken from us. But I shall never forget him—never. He did too much for me, for that. He was the best friend I ever had, by all odds—the very best.”
Rose smiled through her tears.
“He brought you Mrs Snow,” said she, softly.
“Yes, dear. That was much, but he did more than that. It was through him that I made the acquaintance of a better and dearer friend than even she is—and that is saying considerable,” added he, turning his eyes toward the tranquil figure knitting in the arm-chair.
“Were you speaking?” said Mrs Snow, looking up at the sound of his voice.