“I thought that you meant to tell me something,” she said.
“No; run along.”
Along the planks, along the pavement, across the Park, she walked slowly, in the summer starlight, with the letters in her hand.
“Star light! Star bright!
I wish I may, I wish I might,
See somebody I want to see to-night.”
A child’s voice was chanting the words in a dreamy recitative.
“Dear child,” sighed Tessa, with her five and twenty years tugging at her heart.
She longed for a sight of Miss Jewett’s untroubled face to-night; if she might only tell her about the right thing that she had tried to do and how the power to do it had been taken from her!
But no one could comfort her concerning it; not her father, not Miss Jewett, not Ralph Towne, not Gus Hammerton, not Felix!
One glance up into the sky over the trees in the Park helped her more than any human comforting. It was a new experience to have outgrown human comforting; she thought that she had outgrown it that day—the last day of the year; still she must see Miss Jewett; it would be a rest to hear some one talk who did not know about Felix or that other time that the sunshiny eyes had brought to life again. Would they meet as heretofore? Must they meet socially upon the street or at church?
If it might have been that he might remain away for years and years—until she had wholly forgotten or did not care!