CHAPTER VIII
LOOKING AT PICTURES
"A quiet and weary woman,
With all her illusions flown."
—A. A. Proctor.
About this time, when there was nothing to do but to stand and wait, Elsie occupied herself chiefly with books.
One little bit of literary work (which will live, I suppose, as long as literature endures) particularly engaged her attention in these days. It was "Dream-Children" in the "Essays of Elia."
She had so accustomed herself to the imaginary companionship of Jamie that she found it almost impossible to live without him. At nights she had fallen into a habit of glancing towards that corner of her large bedroom in which his little bed was to stand. There was the golden head burying its fluffy curls in the pillow; there was the dimpled hand lying outside the quilt.
And now the dream was fast fading away into a still fainter dream. Jamie had vanished; it was most likely, she thought, that he was dead; anyhow, it was only a miracle which could ever restore him to those who mourned for him. He had joined that troop of phantom children who come to us in our lonely hours, saying, "We are nothing, less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence and a name."