"I would then--and don't you forget it--if ever I get the chance."
Maida glanced sidewise, and shrank the least bit possible away.
"You think me light-minded now, maybe, my dear? I don't wonder at it. Them as hain't been married don't know how lonesome it feels to see just the one cup and saucer laid out beside the teapot at mealtimes."
"There must be memories. It would be sweet, I should have thought, to dwell on the idea that one had gone before, and was waiting across the river to be joined by the old companion."
"Oh yes; that's sweet--in a way. At least it was, when it was a dear young minister that was sayin' beautiful things about the Golden Shore, and comfortin' the bereaved. But twenty years is a long time. The Rev. Mr Beulah is a married man now, with a fine young family of his own. Folks have forgotten about my affliction this many a year. And as for Hezekiah----I don't hold with them spiritualists. He's more to do, you bet, than to be coming around frightenin' a lone woman with messages rapped out on a tea-table, or to mind whether I'm married or single. I'll be laid beside him when the time comes; that's as it should be. But it would be real pleasant to have some one for company in the meantime. It's a vale of tears--we've Gospel for that; but if ever you come to my time of life, you'll be wishin', like me, you had some one to dry your eyes in it."
Maida sighed disappointedly. Her friend's sentiments were too robust for the plaintive tone in which that word "lumber" had been tempting her to indulge. Mrs Denwiddie, on the other hand, felt talkative, and there being no one else whom she could address, she accommodated herself to her friend's mood.
"Is it long, now, since you saw him last?--your friend, I mean."
"He went ten years ago."
"Ten years! That's half a lifetime. Have you been gettin' letters from him for ten years?"
"He used to write--at first, that is. Then he would send a newspaper. Now, I don't know where he is, or what he is doing. I wish I did. All would be forgiven and forgotten, if he only would return."