"Did what die?" she asked slowly and guardedly….
The child at the gipsy's back did not need suck; nevertheless, Annabel's fingers worked at her bosom, and she moved the sling. As the child settled, Annabel gave Aunt Rachel a long look.
"Why do you rock?" she asked slowly.
Aunt Rachel was trembling. She did not reply. In a voice soft as sliding water the gipsy continued:
"Lady dear, we are a strange folk to you, and even among us there are those who shuffle the pack of cards and read the palm when silver has been put upon it, knowing nothing… But some of us see—some of us see."
It was more than a minute before Aunt Rachel spoke.
"You are a woman, and you have your babe at your breast now…. Every woman sees the thing you speak of."
But the gipsy shook her head. "You speak of seeing with the heart. I speak of eyes—these eyes."
Again came a long pause. Aunt Rachel had given a little start, but had become quiet again. When at last she spoke it was in a voice scarcely audible.
"That cannot be. I know what you mean, but it cannot be…. He died on the eve of his wedding. For my bridal clothes they made me black garments instead. It is long ago, and now I wear neither black nor white, but—" her hands made a gesture. Aunt Rachel always dressed as if to suit a sorrow that Time had deprived of bitterness, in such a tender and fleecy grey as one sees in the mists that lie like lawn over hedgerow and copse early of a midsummer's morning. "Therefore," she resumed, "your heart may see, but your eyes cannot see that which never was."