“No,” she said, “I live in New York—we all three have lived in New York always—but I never saw anything of the sea, only from the Battery. None of us has but Henny. Henny has been to Staten Island.”
I was silent in sheer bewilderment. Then it was true; there are people living in New York who have never seen the sea.
Something else trembled on Little Invalid’s lips and out it came, hesitating.
“Bessie an’ Henny’s married last week,” she imparted shyly, touching a great coloured button picture of Bessie upon her waist. “This is their honeymoon.”
“O,” I observed, brightening, “then you will be here for some time. I am so glad.”
Again she shook her head.
“O, no, ma’am,” she answered, “we’re going back to-night. This is Henny’s day off, but Bessie, she wouldn’t come without me. She’s my sister,” said Little Invalid proudly; “she paid my way herself.”
Was it not wonderful for an old woman whose interests are supposed to be confined to draughts and diets to be admitted to such a situation as this? I was still speechless with the delight of it when the old-young married people came outside.
Bessie, the sister to Little Invalid and the bride of a week, was a gentle, worn little woman in the thirties, of shabby neatness, and nervous hands wide and pink at the knuckles, and a smile that was like the gravity of another. “Henny”—I perceive that my analogy extends farther and that some men would better have been christened Nicotine or Camphor—Henny was a bit younger than she, I fancied, and the honest fellow’s heavy, patched-looking hands and quick, blue eyes would immediately have won my heart even if I had not seen the clumsy care that he bestowed upon Little Invalid, as though a bear should don a nurse’s stripes.
Pelleas says that I spoke to them first. I dare say I did, being a very meddlesome old woman, but the first thing that I distinctly recall was hearing Henny say:—