After a long time Penelope spoke. "David, do you remember—" She paused. Her voice fell to a whisper. "What was it that you said to me that morning—don't you remember?—don't cry, little one!"
In all the world there is no fairer prospect than that on which I looked from the little terrace in Perugia. For I saw not alone the lovely Umbrian plain. Before me stretched a fair life itself, into the unending years, from that moment when Penelope spoke, turning as she spoke and looking up at me with a smiling face. What a blind, blundering creature I had been! The black-gloved hand was close to mine on the wall, and I took it. Then I leaned down to her and said: "I remember, Penelope, and I will—I will take care of you always."
CHAPTER XXVII
"Yesterday, Harry, your mother laid a hand upon my arm, and, turning to me with a curious, far-away light in her eyes, said: 'How time flies, David!'"
And I looked down at her proudly, as though this were another of the innumerable new and clever ideas which she has a way of discovering and expressing so concisely.
"What made you think of that, Penelope?"
She pointed over the tangled briers to the woods, to the very spot where the path breaks through the bushes and leads to the brook.
"Yesterday, David—it seems but yesterday—I dragged you out of the deep pool, and to-day—a moment ago—I heard Harry there, shouting."
"He has probably caught a trout," said I as I lighted a cigar. "A small boy always shouts when he lands a fish."
Penelope laughed.