“What is the matter?” asked Aunt Peace.
“Lynn is chasing her. He had something in his fingers that looked like an angle-worm.”
“No doubt. Iris is afraid of worms.”
“I’ll go out and speak to him.”
“No—let them fight it out. We are never young but once, and Youth asks no greater privilege than to fight its own battles. It is mistaken kindness to shield—it weakens one in the years to come.”
“Youth,” repeated Margaret. “The most beautiful gift of the gods, which we never appreciate until it is gone forever.”
“I have kept mine,” said Aunt Peace. “I have deliberately forgotten all the unpleasant things and remembered the others. When a little pleasure has flashed for a moment against the dark, I have made that jewel mine. I have hundreds of them, from the time my baby fingers clasped my first rose, to the night you and Lynn came to bring more sunshine into my old life. I call it my Necklace of Perfect Joy. When the world goes wrong, I have only to close my eyes and remember all the links in my chain, set with gems, some large and some small, but all beautiful with the beauty which never fades. It is all I can take with me when I go. My material possessions must stay behind, but my Necklace of Perfect Joy will bring me happiness to the end, when I put it on, to be nevermore unclasped.”
“Aunt Peace,” asked Margaret, after an understanding silence, “why did you never marry?”
Miss Field leaned forward and methodically stirred the fire. “I may be wrong,” she said, “but I have always felt that it was indelicate to allow one’s self to care for a gentleman.”