“Yet I am a grandmother, a model mother and grandmother, I’d have you remember!”
“It is very strange,” he mused, “mine, who are gone, seem almost nearer than yours, who are here. I sometimes have wondered why you never choose to go to them at Christmas-time. Although it is a happy thing for me that you do not.”
“I prefer my Christmas to myself!”
“But isn’t it lonely?”
“Lonely, when you have never failed me, Henry!” she laughed. “You know I’m a stickler for old customs. I can’t change old friends for new grandchildren.”
“Grandchildren!” he shook his head. “No, it is impossible to believe in them! You seem to me still Lucy Dwight of the long ago,” a twinkle danced in his eyes, “and aren’t you?”
“Who can answer that question but Henry Collinton, of the long ago? Who else remembers?”
They both remembered, and fell silent, joining thoughts.
At length the Bishop, shining-eyed, exclaimed, “Those were great days, when I came here to college!”
“Great days, yes, when I—when we—taught you the town. You thought everything so wonderful that you almost made me believe Westbury wonderful, too.”