“Tell Gus that I will answer his letter sometime; you may let him read this if you like.”
This letter she tore into atoms; she glanced over the others to find Ralph Towne’s name; not once did she find it.
“I will do something to commemorate this anniversary,” she thought. “I will drop his photograph into the fire, and tear the fly-leaf out of the Mrs. Browning he gave me.”
Her name and his initials were all that was written in the book; very carefully she cut out the entire page.
“Why, child! have you seen a ghost?” her mother exclaimed, meeting her in the hall.
“Yes, but it was only a ghost; there was nothing real about it.”
That afternoon, having some sewing to do for her father, she betook herself to the chilliness of the parlor grate; her mother was in a fault-find frame of mind and Tessa’s nerves were ready to be set on edge at the least provocation.
That parlor! She would have wept over its shabbiness had she ever been able to find tears for such purposes. Wheeling an arm-chair near enough to the grate to be made comfortable by all the heat there was, she placed her feet on the fender and folded her hands over the work in her lap. It was a raw day, the sky over Mr. Bird’s house was unsympathetic, the bare branches in the apple orchard stretched out in all directions stiff and dry as if they were never to become green again; the outlook was not cheering, the inlook was little more so; but how could she wish for any thing more than her father was able to give his three dear girls!
This room had seemed pretty to her in the summer when the windows were open and she could have flowers everywhere; Ralph Towne always spoke of her flowers, and he had more than once leaned back in that worn green arm-chair opposite hers, as if that stiff, low room were the place of all places that he loved to be in. In dreary contrast with his own home, how poor and tasteless this home must be! How the carpet must stare up at him with its bunches of flowers and leaves upon its faded gray ground; how plain the white shades must appear after curtains of real lace; how worn and yellowish the green rep of the black-walnut furniture; how few the books in the small bookcase; and the photographs and engravings upon the walls, how they must shock him! How meagre and coarse her dress must be to him after his mother’s rich attire!
She despised herself for pitying herself!