I found Uncle Keith sitting pillowed up in an armchair by the drawing-room fire. I thought he looked shrunken, and there was a pinched look about his features. He had not grown younger and handsomer to my eyes, but as he turned his prominent brown eyes on me with a kind look of welcome, and held out his thin hand, I kissed him with real affection, and my eyes were a little wet.
“Hir-rumph, my dear, I am pleased to see you—there, there, never mind my stupid illness; I am quite a giant now, eh, Agatha? It is worth being ill, Merle, to be nursed by your aunt; oh, quite a luxury I assure you! Hir-rumph.” And here Uncle Keith cleared his throat in his usual fashion, and stirred the fire rather loudly, though he looked a little paler after the exercise.
“But I am so dreadfully sorry, Uncle Keith,” I said, when Aunt Agatha had taken the poker from him and bustled out of the room to fetch him some jelly, “to think I never knew how ill you were.”
“That was all the better, child,” he returned, cheerfully. “Agatha was a wise woman not to tell you; but there are not many people in the world, Merle, who would come up to your aunt, not many,” rubbing his hands together.
“No indeed, Uncle Keith.”
“How do you think she looks?” he continued, turning round rather sharply. “Have I tired her out, eh?”
“She looks a little tired certainly.”
“Hir-rumph, I thought so. Agatha, my dear,” as she re-entered with the jelly, “I do not want all this waiting on now; it is my turn to wait on you! I must not wear out such a good wife, must I, Merle?” And though we both laughed at that, and Aunt Agatha pretended that he was only in fun, it was almost pathetic to see how he watched her busy movements about the room, and how he begged her again and again to sit down and not tire herself, and yet she loved to do it. I think we both of us knew that. I was not disposed to pity Aunt Agatha as I had done in former years. Perhaps I had grown older and more womanly in those eight months of service, and less disposed to be critical on quiet, matter-of-fact lives. On the contrary, I began to understand in a vague sort of way that Aunt Agatha was garnering in much happiness in her useful middle age, in her honest, single-eyed service. Love had come to her in a sober guise, and without pretension, but it was the right sort of love after all, no doubt. To youthful eyes, Uncle Keith was not much of a hero; but a plain honest man, even though he has fewer inches than his fellows, may have merit enough to fill one woman’s heart, and I ceased to wonder at Aunt Agatha’s infatuation in believing herself a happy woman.
We had not much talk apart that day. Aunt Agatha could not leave Uncle Keith, but I never felt him less in the way. I talked quite openly about things; he was as much interested as Aunt Agatha in listening to my description of Marshlands and Wheeler’s Farm, and had not a dissenting word when I praised Gay Cheriton in my old enthusiastic way, and only a soft “hir-rumph” interrupted my account of Reggie’s accident.
It was Aunt Agatha who walked back with me over the bridge in the soft October twilight. Tired as she was, she refused to part with me until the last minute.