“Oh, I’m used to it. I ain’t been rested since Jimmy was born, and that was—let me see—thirty-five year ago. There ain’t a week passed in all that time that I haven’t planned to rest the next week, but I ain’t never compassed it yet.” She laughed a little as she spoke, and trudged along more vigorously. “I guess you ain’t often been out at this time in the mornin’.”
“Not very often,” said the other. Her voice was low and sweet, with a little tremulous catch in it, as if she were almost exhausted.
“’Tisn’t but a step now to the house,” said Mrs. Rawls encouragingly. “I knew the sleigh wouldn’t be down for you for a couple of hours yet, and it did seem best to leave Mis’ Rhodes for a while, with just Elmira downstairs, after we’d done all we could. There’ll be neighbors in later, and people to inquire, and she won’t get much quiet. She wants just to be alone with him for a little. That dear child—” she stopped and choked for a minute. “There! It don’t seem right to cry, and him so sweet and peaceful. It was mighty good of you to stay these last two nights.”
“Oh, don’t, don’t!” said the other in a pained tone. “As if I could have helped wanting to stay! It was so good of her to let me. All that I could do seemed so little. She was so brave, so patient; I shall never forget it, and that sweet child—” she stopped as Mrs. Rawls had done.
“Why, it was only last week that I was walking along here in the snow, and he ran across the street to me and said: ‘It’s so slippery here now, Mrs. Armstrong, I’m afraid you’ll fall; you had better lean on me.’ He put out his little hand for me to take, as seriously as you please, and I let him help me over the crossing. I can see his blue eyes now, with that merry light in them, gazing at me. It doesn’t seem possible—”
“Hardly a morning passed,” said Mrs. Rawls, “that was fit for him to be out, that he didn’t put his head in at my door and say, ‘How are you, Mis’ Rawls? Can I do anything for you?’ He was just like a bit of sunshine, with his curly golden head. It don’t appear as if it could be right that such as him should be took—him as was just born to be a blessing, and his mother without a soul in the world but the boy, and they all in all to each other. I can’t understand it, nohow.”
“It is very difficult,” said the other with a long-drawn sigh. “My heart just aches for her, she seems so alone. Is this your house, Mrs. Rawls? It is odd, isn’t it, that we’ve both lived here all these years, and yet this is the first time I’ve ever known you to speak to. I always thought you had such a kind face. I’ve often felt that I’d like to speak to you, but I didn’t know how.”
“Why, my dear!” said Mrs. Rawls, stopping on the threshold, her countenance fairly illumined with pleased surprise; “you that’s so rich and proud and handsome—why, I never even sensed that you saw me. You afraid to speak to me! Well, that does beat all! But you’re just done out now, poor child; come right in here! I’m going to slip off your cloak, so, and lay you right down on the lounge and make you a good hot cup of coffee, and then you’ve got to take a little nap before the sleigh comes for you.”
Almost before she knew Helen Armstrong was lying on the old chintz lounge with Mrs. Rawls’s gray shawl wrapped around her feet. The room was small, low-ceilinged, and homely, filled with evidences of daily occupation; nothing could be further removed from her own luxurious chamber, yet she felt an unwonted sensation of comfort which reached its height after the fragrant coffee had been swallowed, and Mrs. Rawls’s motherly hand had smoothed back the pillows for her. Helen caught the hand and held it tight in her own for a minute, before she turned over on one side and closed her eyes. It was years since she had been taken care of. It was she who planned and gave orders for the comfort of others, but she had no near relatives of her own, and hers had been the personal isolation which state and riches bring.
With her eyes closed, she thought of many things; of her old school friend Anne Rhodes, whom she had always been fond of, yet with whom she had kept up but a spasmodic intercourse since marriage had claimed both lives.