"But by the time I got her answer I had lost it all again. I came home on the money she cabled me. She met me at the depot with a new car! She never told me she wasn't well; she never told ME she hadn't long to live! I'm glad I went back to college; she wanted me to do that. I nearly didn't, I nearly lit out again. If they insist on having the coffin open in church and me looking—in front of everybody—I don't care. I'll do it; I won't have people laughing at her now!"
Then Emily remembered a certain hour. "Oh, Johnnie!" she began. And, as she understood the significance of what she recalled, she hesitated.
"She told me once, not so very long ago, that she'd written out directions for her funeral. She hated sensational funerals—and people fainting. She wanted hers very simple."
"When was this?"
Now Emily remembered too distinctly, all of a sudden.
"It was after somebody's funeral, as we were walking home from the cemetery. I don't remember—when, exactly." Why should she tell the boy it had happened when he was sailing away towards Brazil and his deserted mother had learned her fate in loneliness? "I imagine if you go down to Johnson and Larned's, they'll have her directions put away with her will."
"Oh, do you think—I ought to do that? I mean—I don't want to seem to be grabbing her will in a hurry!"
"Ask your aunts about it. I'll go over and tell them with you, if you want me to."
"Will you? Oh, do! But wait a little. Can't I have another smoke here, first? It seems—strange, over there, this way."
And as he walked around smoking, Emily thought: "Yes, and she knew all the time as we walked home together that day that she'd be there in the cemetery soon, and she never told me. She wanted me to know she had given directions for her funeral, and she let me think she had no special reason for giving them; and she didn't know where this boy was, or whether she would ever see him again, and she never said a word to me about it. And she pointed out to me Mrs. Johnson's red lilies as we passed, and said she was going to move hers into the sun!"