Selecting a purple thibet, with a little white sprig, she slipped off
her own dress, and stepped into it. She crossed a muslin kerchief on
her breast, and pinned it with the cameo her mother had been used to
wear. It was impossible to look at herself in the doing; but when the
deed was over, she went again to the glass and stood there, held by a
wonder beyond her will. She had resurrected the creature she loved;
this was an enduring portrait, perpetuating, in her own life, another
life as well.
"I'll pack away my own clo'es to-morrer," said Lucy Ann to herself.
"Them are the ones to be put aside."
She went downstairs, hushed and tremulous, and seated herself again,
her thin hands crossed upon her lap; and there she stayed, in a
pleasant dream, not of the future, and not even of the past, but face
to face with a recognition of wonderful possibilities. She had dreaded
her loneliness with the ache that is despair; but she was not lonely
any more. She had been allowed to set up a little model of the
tabernacle where she had worshiped; and, having that, she ceased to be
afraid. To sit there, clothed in such sweet familiarity of line and
likeness, had tightened her grasp upon the things that are.
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