Miss Gibbie Gault Part 31

there was. If ever I'm a widow I bet words said to her every now and then, even if she knows they ain't so."

She got up and, before the mirror over the mantel, pinned on her hat, getting it, as usual, on the side. Taking up her coat, she felt it to see that it was dry, and again nodded at the lady in the chair.

"I tell you customs is curious, Miss Gibbie, and, bein' man-made mostly, ain't altogether in favor of females. But neither is life. Life has got a lot in it what ain't apple-blossoms and cherry-pie. You think you've got things like you want 'em; you peg away for this and you beat around for that, and, just as you're gettin' ready to set down and enjoy yourself, up comes somethin' you warn't a lookin' for and knocks the stuffin' clean out of you. I found out a long time ago 'twas all foolishness, this waitin' to enjoy yourself, and I says to myself, says I, 'Look here, Bettie Frances Duke McDougal, if there's any little forget-me-nots along the road, you just pick 'em up and make a posy.

Don't be waitin' for American Beauties to pull.' I never cared much for American Beauties, anyhow. I ain't ever had one, but a whole lot of things don't give pleasure after they're got. Well, good-bye, Miss Gibbie. I certainly have enjoyed seein' of you. I told somebody the other day that for sense and wisdom and the learnin' in books there warn't your match on earth. Just to hear you talk is an edjication, and I sure do enjoy myself whenever I see you. I hope you don't mind my comin' to-day?"

Miss Gibbie, who had risen, held out her hand. "No," she said. "I am glad you came. I may have to send for you pretty often this winter. You can help me--you and Peggy. Tell Peggy she must come and see me."

For an hour, two hours, Miss Gibbie sat before her fire, hands in her lap, eyes unseeing, bent upon the curling, darting flames. One by one days of the past year come before her, stopped or pa.s.sed on according to their memories. The long talks with Mary of late repeated themselves, and she felt again the warm, young arms about her as she was told that which she knew so well. John's hands, too, seemed again to hold hers as he asked for the promised blessing, and when he bent and kissed her she had laughed lightly lest her heart give sign of its twisting, s.h.i.+vering hurt.

Suddenly her face fell forward in her hands. "So many lonely people in the world," she said, under her breath, "so many people in Lonely Land!

n.o.body to wait for when the day is done. n.o.body to go to when darkness falls!"

After a while she got up and walked over to the window and stood beside it. The early twilight had become night, but the first snow of the season showed clearly in the unbroken whiteness of lawn and long, straight street and roofs of seeming marble. The burdened branches of crystal-coated trees swayed in the wind, and here and there, in the light cast from tall poles at long intervals apart, they gleamed in dazzling brilliance and flas.h.i.+ng sheen. Past streets and houses on to open fields, her eyes, through the whirling, fast-falling snow, followed the Calverton road which led to Tree Hill, and in the darkness she saw the lights in the house twinkle faintly in the flake-filled air.

Drawing the curtains farther aside, she stood close to the window and pressed her face upon it. Behind the house and below the apple orchard at a snow-covered mound she was now in spirit, and under her breath she made effort to speak bravely.

"A lonely old woman, Colleen. A lonely old woman, but the old must not get in the way of the young. Your eyes have been upon me. You've made me remember youth comes but once, and life--is love."

The opening of the door made her turn quickly. Snow-covered, faces flushed with the sting of biting wind, vivid and full of glow, they stood before her--Mary and John.

"I had to see you." Unfastening the fur coat, Mary handed it to John, then threw her arms around Miss Gibbie. "Are you sure you are perfectly well? This morning you seemed to have a little cold, and I couldn't--"

"--Rest until she saw for herself how you were to-night." John put the coat on the chair. "I told her I'd come and see you, but that wouldn't do."

"Of course it wouldn't!" Again the face held between her hands was searched anxiously, and her eyes lighted with glad relief. "I was so worried. I'm never going to let anybody see for me how you are. I'm going to always see for myself!"