“Do you think he cares anything about his sister-in-law?”
“Of course he does. He wrote her a letter to Chicago; but she had left before it reached there; and once, in speaking of her to Georgie, he called her ‘a brave little woman;’ and, if you believe me, I think Georgie didn’t quite like it.”
There were little throbs of joy quivering all along through Edna’s veins, and softly to herself she repeated: “Brave little woman,” trying to imagine how Roy looked when he said that of her, and how his voice sounded. She did not care for Georgie Burton’s liking or disliking what Roy said. She did not care even if Georgie became his wife, as Maude said she probably would. If he only gave her a place in his heart as his sister, and esteemed her “a brave little woman,” she was more than content; and in Edna’s eyes there was a brightness not borrowed from the fire-light, as, long after Maude was in bed, she sat upon the hearth, combing her curls, and thinking of Roy Leighton, who had called her “a brave little woman,” and acknowledged her as his sister.
Maude’s visit did Edna a world of good, for it brought her glimpses of a life widely different from any she had known, and stirred her up to higher aims, by inspiring her with a desire to make herself something of which Roy should not be ashamed, if ever she chanced to meet him. And she should meet him sometime, she was sure of that; and Maude would be the medium, perhaps; for, if necessary, she would tell her everything, knowing she could trust her as her own sister. They grew to liking each other very much during the few days Maude stayed at the farm-house; and Edna roused herself from a certain morbid listlessness into which she had fallen, with regard to herself and her personal appearance, thinking it did not matter how she looked or what she wore, as black was black anyway. But Maude did not think so.
“Needn’t look like a Guy, if you do wear black,” she said.
And so she coaxed Edna into white collars and cuffs, and, spying the jet, made her put it on, and screamed with delight when she saw how it brightened her up, and relieved the sombreness of her attire.
“If you were a widow, you could not go into deeper mourning than you have,” she said, as she was trying the effect of arranging Edna’s curls a little more fashionably, and twisting in a bit of lavender ribbon taken from her own box.
“Oh, no, not that,” Edna cried, as she looked at herself in the glass, and thought of the driving rain, the terrible wreck, and the white, drenched face beneath.
But Maude, who knew nothing of this as connected with Edna, insisted upon the ribbon just for that evening, and managed to have Uncle Phil praise the effect, and say he liked bright, pretty things, and wished Edna would wear ribbons and jet all the time.
The next day was Sunday; and Maude suggested that Uncle Phil should drive herself and Edna over to St. Jude’s, at Millville.