“Come in,” she called cheerfully to Milly. “I just saw Mrs. Furniss go past; she looked as if she thought I was committing one of the seven deadly sins when she discovered that I was beating my eggs in here. The aborigines consider a parlor a sacred thing, you know. It’s the pleasantest place in the whole house this morning, and this lilac bush is budding. It’s spring again, for certain.”
“Yes,” said Milly listlessly.
“I’m making custard for dessert to-morrow; the bishop’s coming. He always says, ‘Mrs. Preston, it’s such a relief to reach your house and get sponge cake and syllabub, instead of relays of pie!’ You know the poor, dear man has the dyspepsia terribly, and you New England people have no mercy on him. I’m glad he’s coming to-morrow, it gives me something more to do; one must work in the spring, or die. If this weather keeps on I’ll get at the garret. What is the matter with you this morning, Milly?”
“I’m tired,” said Milly with a quiver of her lip.
“Work.”
“I have worked! I’m busy all the time, but it doesn’t do any good. It’s hard to have Norton away for so long. I can’t help feeling—” she stopped a moment and looked very hard out of the window. “I’m afraid I’m beginning to get—melancholy about it.” She was trying to smile, but a bright tear fell in her lap.
“I don’t think you’re very unhappy,” said Mrs. Preston. She put the bowl of eggs down on the table and folded her thin arms. “It’s the luxury of grief that you’re enjoying—part of the romance. Be melancholy—as you call it—while you can.”
“You are always so cheerful,” said Milly rather resentfully.
“I, my dear! I don’t dare to be anything else. I have to be cheerful, or—” She turned a darkening face to the budding lilacs. “I don’t dare to think long enough to be depressed, to even—remember. There’s an awful abyss down which I slip when I get melancholy; it’s the bottomless pit. I know it’s there all the time, but I have to pretend to myself that I’m not near it, or I get dragged under. I avoid it like the plague!” A momentary spasm contracted her face; she added in a lower tone, “Did you know that I had four children once? They died within a year.”
“Oh, you poor thing!” cried Milly. She reached forward and tried to take one of the fast-locked hands of the woman before her. “Oh, how terrible, how terrible! How did you live?”