To me the great events in Miss Theodora's life were those three
occasions when she had to summon her strength to great decisions. These
soul crises counted for more than any other happenings in her life.
First, there was that struggle when she had to choose between her lover
and her nephew; then, almost as severe, though different in kind, the
battle in which at last she had given in to Ernest in his choice of a
profession; and last, although it had had no outward result, her merging
of her own prejudice against Eugenie in a readiness to do what would
probably make Ernest happier.
Hardly less bitter than these three struggles was the one which Miss
Theodora waged to decide whether or not it was her duty to join Ernest
in the West. At last she yielded in this more quickly though with
greater pain than in the two cases when she had given in to Ernest about
Harvard and about Eugenie.
She left Boston with the less reluctance, perhaps, because of certain
changes--some persons called them "improvements"--that had begun to
appear in her well-loved West End. The tall apartment houses which had
begun to creep in even before she left the city, the electric cars now
dashing through Charles street, were innovations that cut her to the
heart.
The breaking up of her modest little home soon followed.
"You will spend half of every year with us," said Kate, now pleasantly
situated in a house whose western windows overlooked the river. She had
already begun to make life pleasant for Ben's sisters, one of whom was
always staying with her.
"That will depend upon Ernest," Miss Theodora had answered, smiling. As
a matter of fact, she did not return to Boston, even for a visit, until
after Ernest's marriage; and so with her removal to Colorado, her
story--as a West End story--may be said to end.
But if I should tell you more about Miss Theodora, I would describe the
delightful New England home which, with Diantha's help, she made for
Ernest in Denver. Nor would I be able to omit telling of the romance
which came into her own life.
At first she tried to avoid meeting William Easton, now a widower; but
efforts of this kind, of course, were useless. They met calmly enough;
and as they talked together, the years that had passed seemed as
nothing.
"So you have come West, after all, Theodora--and for Ernest's sake, too,
though it was for his sake you refused to come so long ago."
"Yes," she said, "for Ernest's sake it seems, though when I see how much
he owes to you, I realize that you are more than kind--almost cruelly
kind--"
Then William Easton, smiling somewhat sadly, said nothing in reply,
though indeed there was no need of words. We all know how a story of
this kind ends in books; and even in real life old lovers sometimes
renew the pledges of youth.
(The End.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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