At the end of this speech, Mrs. Cromwell, either exhausted from so many words or from the thoughts her own explanation had conjured up, sighed and leant back in her chair, dropping her chin on the immaculate whiteness of her cambric bosom, as her son would sink his on his breast when he was thoughtful or oppressed.
"Richard," said Elisabeth Claypole in that soft, eager voice which was always ready to plead for and to praise every one, "is not suited for the army—he never cared for it."
"Cannot you see," replied Elisabeth Cromwell almost sharply, "what a disappointment that is for your father?"
"He loveth Oliver," whispered Oliver's sister, and her eyes swam in tears. "Oliver would have been a good soldier."
"He loved Robert more," returned the grandmother. "Robert was the first born. His eldest son. Richard could never be as either Robert or Oliver to him; yet he will be loving and just to Richard." That sense of the presence of the dead that the hushed mention of them seems to so often evoke, as if they were never far, and at the sound of love and regret hovered near, filled the darkening room. Both the grandmother and sister seemed to see the bright ardent figure of the young cornet, whose life had burst forth so fiercely into action amid the whirling events of war, and had been stilled so suddenly by a hideous disease in an insignificant garrison, and was now forgotten save by these one or two who had loved him.
Elisabeth Claypole remembered; she remembered his excitement, their mother's instructions, the cordials and balms he had taken with him, the fine shirts she had helped stitch and pack, his new sword that had looked so big to her childish eyes—the farewells—the letters....
Elisabeth Cromwell remembered; she remembered his farewell visit, how she had blessed him and he had knelt before her with her hand on his smooth fair head ... and his tallness and straightness and slenderness, and all his bright new bravery of war array....
"Ah well," she said softly. "Ah well," and her mind wandered off to her own youth, and it seemed to her as if she had indeed been living a long time ... almost too long.
"Light the candles, my love, my dear," she said. "It is sad to sit in the dark."
As her granddaughter rose, the door opened and Oliver Cromwell entered.