"Never mind that verse," she said, beginning again; "it is the next. Do you remember?—
'My good right hand forgets
Its cunning now.
To march the weary march,
I know not how.
'I am not eager, bold,
Nor brave; all that is past.
I am ready not to do,
At last, at last!—'
I am too young to feel so," Mrs. Barclay went on, after a pause which
Lois did not break; "but that is how I feel to-day."
"I do not think one need—or ought—at any age," Lois said gently; but her words were hardly regarded.
"Do you hear that wind?" said Mrs. Barclay. "It has been singing and sighing in the chimney in that way all the afternoon."
"It is Christmas," said Lois. "Yes, it often sings so, and I like it. I like it especially at Christmas time."
"It carries me back—years. It takes me to my old home, when I was a child. I think it must have sighed so round the house then. It takes me to a time when I was in my fresh young life and vigour—the unfolding leaf—when life was careless and cloudless; and I have a kind of home-sickness to-night for my father and mother.—Of the days since that time, I dare not think."
Lois saw that rare tears had gathered in her friend's eyes, slowly and few, as they come to people with whom hope is a lost friend; and her heart was filled with a great pang of sympathy. Yet she did not know how to speak. She recalled the verse of the soldier's hymn which Mrs. Barclay had passed over—
"A bowing, burdened head,
That only asks to rest,
Unquestioning, upon
A loving breast."