“Now you go in the other room an' set down, an' let me take care of the dishes,” said Mrs. Field, timidly.
Lois faced about instantly. “Now, mother, I'd just like to know what you mean?” said she. “I guess I ain't quite so far gone but what I can wash up a few dishes. You act as if you wanted to make me out sick in spite of myself.”
“I thought mebbe you was kind of tired,” said her mother, apologetically.
“I ain't tired. I'm jest as well able to wash up the supper dishes as I ever was.” Lois carried the cups and saucers to the sink with a resolute air, and Mrs. Field said no more. She went into her bedroom to change her dress; she was going to evening meeting.
Lois washed and put away the dishes; then she went into the sitting-room, and sat down by the open window. She leaned her cheek against the chairback and looked out; a sweet almond fragrance of cherry and apple blossoms came into her face; over across the fields a bird was calling. Lois did not think it tangibly, but it was to her as if the blossom scent and the bird call came out of her own future. She was ill, poor, and overworked, but she was not unhappy, for her future was yet, in a way, untouched; she had not learned to judge of it by hard precedent, nor had any mistake of hers made a miserable certainty of it. It still looked to her as fair ahead as an untrodden field of heaven.
She was quite happy as she sat there; but when her mother, in her black woollen dress, entered, she felt instantly nervous and fretted. Mrs. Field said nothing, but the volume and impetus of her anxiety when she saw her daughter's head in the window seemed to actually misplace the air.
Presently she went to the window, and leaned over to shut it.
“Don't shut the window, mother,” said Lois.
“I'm dreadful afraid you'll catch cold, child.”
“No, I sha'n't, either. I wish you wouldn't fuss so, mother.”