It could be no chance that had worked such a change. There were holes
still in the wall where a bracket had been taken down. A new clock was
on the mantelpiece; there was literally not a thing left the same, not
even the carpet on the floor. It gave her a feeling of resentment; but
this was not the moment to feel resentment. So she went softly down the
stairs, telling her mother to try to sleep, and she would wait up, and
see if she could do anything more than thank Mr. Andrews when he came
in. This was no more than civil; but strangely, Missy did not feel
civil, as she sat counting the minutes in the parlor below. She felt as
if it were odious to be there, odious to feel that he was working for
them, that she must be grateful to him. All her past prejudices, which
had been dying out in the silence of the last few months, and under the
knowledge of his steady kindness to his children, came back as she went
up into that room, which, to her vivid imagination, must always bring
back the most painful scene she had ever witnessed. She had never
expected to enter this house again, at least while its present tenants
occupied it, and here she was, and certain to stay here for one night
and day at least. She had had none of these feelings as she sat during
the evening silently thankful beside her mother; all this tumult of
resentment had come since she had gone up-stairs. The memory of the
beautiful young creature, whose dreadful death she had witnessed, came
back to her with strange power; and the thought that she had been
banished from her children's minds made her almost vindictive. How can I
speak to him? how have I ever spoken to him? she thought, as her eyes
wandered around the room, searching for some trace of her. But it was
thoroughly a man's apartment, "bachelor quarters" indeed. Not a picture
of the woman whose beauty would have graced a palace; not a token that
she had ever been under this roof, that she had died here less than a
year ago. The nurse had come into the room as Missy sat waiting, and,
seeming to divine her thought, said, while she put straight chairs and
books:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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