“Such a dear, old-fashioned garden!” Hetty said, half aloud. “It reminds me of the one we had at home!” Leaning upon the orchard gate she abandoned herself to reverie. The robins’ whistle in the apple tree was low and tender; fleecy clouds, drifting toward the west, began to blush on the sunward side, the blending odors of a thousand flowers hung in the air. The word “home” took thought back—thoughts of the only one she had ever had, and the mother whose death lost it to her. Since then she had stood alone, and helped weaker people to stand. A great longing for rest in a love she could claim as all hers drove tears to her eyes. The longing was not new, but the hope that softened it was. Hitherto, it had been linked with her mother’s image only. She wanted her now, as much, and more than ever before, but that she might sympathize with what she began to comprehend tremblingly. Her mother would enter into her trembling and her joy. Especially if she had seen what Hetty never could describe—a look the memory of which renewed the shy, delicious shame expressed in the blush March had pitied, while rejoicing in the sight of it.
Such a boundless, beautiful world opened to her while she stood there, looking down the blossoming vistas of the orchard—solitary, yet comforted! She would give rein to imagination for that little while. It could harm no one, even if it were all a chimera that would not outlast blossom-time. And must it be that? What had glorified other desolate women’s lives might bless hers. Spring comes to every year, however long and cruel may have been the winter. Recalling March’s prophecy of future association, she dared dwell upon visions of his visits, of the pleasant familiar talks that would make them better acquainted; of the books they would read and discuss; of the pictures he would paint, with her looking on.
“I am not beautiful or accomplished,” she said humbly. “But I would make myself more worthy of him. I am young and apt. I would make no mistakes that could mortify him. He should never be ashamed of me, and, oh!” she stretched her arms involuntarily, as if to draw the unseen nearer to her heart—“how faithfully I would serve him, forever and forever.”
The flight of fancy had indeed been fast and far!
The tinkle of the dinner bell in Mary Ann’s vigorous hand ended the fond foolishness abruptly. It was the careful housewife who asked herself with a guilty start: “What has become of Homer and the parsley?”
Her first step in returning was upon something hard. She picked it up.
Homer met his young mistress at the back door. His weak, furtive eyes were uneasy before she accosted him. At her incisive tone the red rims closed entirely over them, his hands, grimy with groping in gravel and turf, fumbled with one another, and his loose jaw dangled.
“Homer, you said this afternoon that you had been out to do an errand. Do not leave the place again without letting me know where you are going, and for what.”
“Now,” he began wretchedly, “you wasn’t at home, ’n I thought——”