Through that night and the next day, Miss Jewett watched with Sue; before another morning broke, Sue—poor widowed Sue!—was taken in hysterics from the room.
XXII.—SEVERAL OTHER THINGS.
Tessa dropped the curtains, arranged the heavy crimson folds, and lighted the gas.
“I shall do this many times in my imagination before spring,” she said. “The curtains in my room, Dine says, are Turkey red, and my gas will be one tall sperm candle. Just about twilight you will feel my ghost stealing in, the curtains will fall, and invisible hands play among them, the jets will start into light, and then the perfume of a kiss will touch your forehead and hair. The perfume shall be that of a pansy or a day-lily, as you prefer.”
“I would rather have your material lips; I am not fond of ghostly visitants; I shall feel you always beside me; I shall not forget you even in my sleep.”
“You are too kind to me,” said Tessa, after a moment, during which she had donned her brown felt hat and buttoned her long brown cloth cloak. The feeble old lady in the arm-chair flushed like a girl under the gratitude of Tessa’s eyes; her eyes filled slowly as Tessa came to her and kissed her.
“I am very old womanish about you; it must be because I am not strong; I would never let you go away out of my presence if I could hinder it.”
“I want to stay with you; I am never happier than I am in this room; but I must go; it is a promise; and I must go to-morrow. Uncle Knox will meet me at the train with a creaky old buggy and a half-blind white horse; then we shall drive six miles through a flat country with farm-houses scattered here and there to a cunning little village containing one church and one store and about forty dwellings. Our destination is a small house near the end of the principal street where live the most devoted old couple in the world! Aunt Theresa and Uncle Knox are a pair of lovers; it is beautiful to see them together; it is worth travelling across the continent; they never forget each other for an instant, and yet they make no parade of their affection; I am sure that they will both die upon the same day of the same disease. Their life is as lovely as a poem. I have often wondered how they attained it, if it were perfect before they were married or if it grew.”
She was standing under the chandelier buttoning her gloves, with her earnest face towards the lady in the arm-chair.
“It grew,” said a voice behind her. Dr. Towne had entered unperceived by either. “Is that all?”