“Is it?” she would ask, drowsily. “I must go to sleep, then, deary, so that I may be quite rested and refreshed when he comes.”
Her room, in contrast to the rest of the house, was almost Puritan in its simplicity. The bed and dresser were mahogany, plain, but highly polished, and she had a mahogany rocker with a cushion of old blue tapestry. There was a simple white cover on the bed and another on the dresser, but the walls were dead white, unrelieved by pictures or draperies. In the east window was a long, narrow footstool, and a prayer book and hymnal lay on the window sill, where this maiden of half a century, looking seaward, knelt to say her prayers.
One morning, when Ruth went in, she said: “I think I won't get up this morning, dear; I am so very tired. If Carl should come over, will you say that I should like to see him?”
She would see no one but Carl and Ruth, and Mrs. Ball was much offended because her friend did not want her to come upstairs. “Don't be harsh with her, Aunt Jane,” pleaded Ruth, “you know people often have strange fancies when they are ill. She sent her love to you, and asked me to say that she thanked you, but you need not put the light in the attic window any more.”
Mrs. Ball gazed at her niece long and earnestly. “Be you tellin' me the truth?” she asked.
“Why, of course, Aunty.”
“Then Mary Ainslie has got sense from somewheres. There ain't never been no need for that lamp to set in the winder; and when she gets more sense, I reckon she'll be willin' to see her friends.” With evident relief upon her face, Mrs. Ball departed.
But Miss Ainslie seemed quite satisfied, and each day spoke more lovingly to Ruth and Carl. He showed no signs of impatience, but spent his days with her cheerfully. He read to her, held her hand, and told her about the rug, the Marquise, and the Japanese lovers. At the end she would always say, with a quiet tenderness: “and some one who loved me brought it to me!”
“Yes, Miss Ainslie; some one who loved you. Everybody loves you; don't you know that?”
“Do you?” she asked once, suddenly and yet shyly.