Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction; Vermont -- Fiction
Marise reached over beyond Elly and tucked the covers in with one arm,
drew the child closer to her, and herself drew closer to Neale. She
wondered if he had been awakened by Elly's voice, and the little stir in
the room, and hoped he had not. He had been off on a very long hard
tramp over mountain trails the day before, and had been tired at night.
Perhaps if he had been wakened by Elly he would drowse off again at once
as she felt herself doing now, conscious sleepily and happily of Elly's
dear tender limbs on one side of her and of Neale's dear strong body on
the other.
* * * * *
The strong March wind chanted loudly outside in the leafless
maple-boughs. As Marise felt her eyelids falling shut again it seemed to
her, half-awake, half-asleep, that the wind was shouting out the refrain
of an old song she had heard in her childhood, "There's room for all!
There's room for all! What had it meant, that refrain? She tried
drowsily to remember, but instead felt herself richly falling asleep
again, her hands, her arms, her body.
"There's room for all! There's room for all!"
She was almost asleep. . . .
Someone was speaking again. Elly's voice, calmer now, wistful and
wondering, as though she were lying awake and trying to think.
"Mother."
"Yes, dear, what is it?
"Mother, aren't you and father afraid of anything?"
* * * * *
Marise was wide-awake now, thinking hard. She felt Neale stir, grope for
her hand and hold it firmly . . . Neale's strong hand!
She knew what she was saying. Yes, she knew all that it meant when she
answered, "No, Elly, I don't believe we are."
End of Project Gutenberg's The Brimming Cup, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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