The croquet
ground suffered varying fortunes. It might happen that the balls were
potatoes, when apples failed to be in season; often her wickets broke,
and stood up in two ragged horns. Sometimes one fell away altogether,
and Della, like the planets, kept an unseen track. Once or twice, the
mistaken benevolence of others gave her real distress. The minister's
daughter, noting her solitary game, mistook it for forlornness, and, in
the warmth of her maiden heart, came to ask if she might share. It was
a timid though official benevolence; but Della's bright eyes grew dark.
She clung to her kitchen chair.
"I guess I won't," she said, and, in some dim way, everybody began to
understand that this was but an intimate and solitary joy. She had
grown so used to spreading her banquets for one alone that she was
frightened at the sight of other cups upon the board; for although
loneliness begins in pain, by and by, perhaps, it creates its own
species of sad and shy content.
Della did not have a long life; and that was some relief to us who were
not altogether satisfied with her outlook here. The place she left need
not be always desolate. There was a good maiden sister to keep the
house, and Eben and the children would be but briefly sorry.
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