“I have parted with all my possessions, but Florence and Walter shall be commissioned to get you something.”
“The thing I should have liked,” Mrs. North answered, “was a little brooch you used to wear. It had hair in the middle, and a crinkly gold setting around it.”
“My dear,” said Aunt Anne, dreamily, “it is in a little box in my left-hand drawer; but it needs renovating—the pin is broken, and the glass and the hair have come out. It belonged to my mother.”
“Give it to me,” Mrs. North said eagerly. “I will have it done up, and wear it till you are better, and then you shall have it back; let me get it at once”—and in her eager manner she went to the drawer. “Here it is,” she said. “It will make a little gold buckle. I have a canary-coloured ribbon in the next room; I will put it through, and wear it round my neck. Aunt Anne, you have made me a present.”
“I am delighted that it meets with your approval, my dear”—and there was a long silence. The morning dragged on—a happy spring morning, on which, as Mrs. North said to herself, you could almost hear the summer walking to you over the little flowers. Presently Aunt Anne called her.
“I was thinking,” she said, “of a canary-coloured dress I had when I was a girl. I wore it at my first ball—it was a military ball, my dear, and the officers were all in uniform. As soon as I entered the room, Captain Maxwell asked me to dance; but I felt quite afraid, and said, ‘You must take off your sword, if you please, and put it on one side.’ Think of my audacity in asking him to do such a thing; but he did it. Your ribbon made me remember it”—and again she dropped off to sleep.
Mrs. North went to the window, and looked out once more. “I feel like sister Anne on the watch-tower,” she said to herself. “If they would only come.” Suddenly a dread overcame her. Florence and Walter knew nothing of Alfred Wimple’s conduct. They might arrive, and, before she had time to tell them, by some chance word cause Aunt Anne infinite pain. The shame and humiliation seemed to have gone out of the old lady’s life during the last day or two. It would be a cruel thing to remind her of it. She had made herself ready to meet death. It was coming to her gently and surely, with thoughts of those she loved, and a remembrance of the days that had been before the maddening shame of the past year. Mrs. North went downstairs. Jane Mitchell was in the kitchen.
“Is there any way of sending a note to the station?” she asked.
“Why, yes, ma’am; Lucas would take it with the pony-cart.”
“Go to him, ask him to get ready at once, and come to me for the letter.” As shortly as possible she wrote an account of all that had taken place at the cottage, and explained her own presence there.