It was
another place. She ran upstairs to her own room, and I followed her, and
from being a deserted bedroom with a lonely aspect it became a human
habitation with an atmosphere of home. She took off her travelling
dress, talking gayly to me all the while, and brushed her bright locks,
and put on one of the charming white frocks which her own hands had
made, and then came and held me tight, and laughed, and was very near
crying, and said there was never such another place as this.
"There certainly never is when you are in it, dear," I agreed, and
received such a reward for that as only the Gay Lady knows how to give.
All day she stayed by me, wherever I might be. The Skeptic watched and
waited--he got not the ghost of an opportunity. When I was upon the
porch with the others she was there--and not a minute after.
* * * * *
When evening fell it found the Gay Lady on a cushion close by my knee.
Presently the Philosopher went off with the Lad down to the river. The
Skeptic accompanied them part of the distance, then returned quite
unexpectedly by way of the shrubbery, and swung up over the porch rail
at the end at a moment when the Gay Lady, feeling safe in his absence,
had gone to that end to see the moonlight upon the river.
Pages:
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86