"Don't you feel the time long? Don't you grow weary sometimes?"
"No! Oh, no!" with slight surprise. "I am content."
"But surely you get lonely—blue now and then?"
"Lonely?" with the brightest of smiles. "Oh, no! They are all here."
Heaven forgive me! I had thought she perhaps might have wanted some of the world's cheerful distraction.
"But was it always so? Didn't you fret at the first?" I persisted.
"No, not at the first."
"That means that bad times came afterwards?"
"Yes," she answers slowly, and a faint red comes up in her cheek as if from shame. "After the first six months I found it pretty hard."
I wait, not sure what thoughts I have brought to her, and then she goes on: