Laurie Morse had kept the singing-school that winter. He
had loved Amelia; he had bound himself to her by all the most holy vows
sworn from aforetime, and then, in some wanton exhibit of power--gone
home with another girl. And for Amelia's responsive throb of feminine
anger, she had spent fifteen years of sober country living with a man
who had wrapped her about with the quiet tenderness of a strong nature,
but who was not of her own generation either in mind or in habit; and
Laurie had kept a music-store in Saltash, seven miles away, and
remained unmarried.
Now Amelia looked about the room, and mentally displaced the furniture,
as she had done so many times while she and her husband sat there
together. The settle could be taken to the attic. She had not the heart
to carry out one secret resolve indulged in moments of impatient
bitterness,--to split it up for firewood. But it could at least be
exiled. She would have a good cook-stove, and the great fireplace
should be walled up. The tin kitchen, sitting now beside the hearth in
shining quaintness, should also go into the attic. The old clock--But
at that instant the clash of bells shivered the frosty air, and Amelia
threw her vain imaginings aside like a garment, and sprang to her feet.
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