I knew not how to reply. The very bit of material which she had hidden
underneath a pillow was the cause; and so I answered,--
"Town-life is so different; one becomes so accustomed to a ring of
changes in the all-around of life, that, when in the country, one looks
for something to remind one of the life that has been left."
"Then you did not come from genuine kindness?"
"No, I am afraid not."
"Do not be afraid to be truthful, ever," she said, and added,--"Once
more, will you tell me where you found the fragment you have given me?"
"I cannot, Miss Axtell."
She did not speak again, but lay looking at the ceiling until long after
the moon had risen,--the waning moon, that comes up so weirdly, late in
the night, like a spectre of light appointed to haunt the solemn old
earth, and punish it with the remembrance of a brighter, better light
gone, and a renewed consciousness of its own once unformed, chaotic
existence. I saw rays from it coming in through the parted curtains, and
distinctly traced tree-branches wavering to and fro out in the
night-wind, set astir as the moon came up. At last she said,--
"I wish you would go to sleep. Won't you wake Katie up, and then lie
down? She has had a rest."
"Poor, tired child," I said; "she had work to do yesterday; I had not.
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