CHAPTER XV.

“THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART.”

Joyce sat with her elbows on her dressing-table and her chin in her hands, gazing thoughtfully into the mirror.  She had just come from Betty’s room, and the child’s patient cheerfulness, in the face of the dark future that threatened her, had brought the tears to her eyes.

“Dear little Betty!” she said to her reflection in the mirror.  “What a beautiful memory of her we will all carry away with us!  There isn’t a single thing I would want to forget about her.  She will be leaving each one of us a Road of the Loving Heart to look back on.  And it’s like the work of the old Samoan chiefs, too!  Built to last for ever.  It frightens me to think that what I’ve done is going to be remembered for ever and ever and ever; but that is what Mrs. Sherman said:  ’The memories we dig into our souls will go with us into eternity.’

“If I should die right now, what a lot of things I would want people to forget about me; especially the family.  I’ve been so mean to Jack and so selfish with Mary.  I’m going to begin the minute I get back to the little brown house to start to make a memory road for everybody, that I need not be ashamed of when I lie a-dying.”

Then she gave a shamefaced little glance at her reflection in the mirror.  “No, that’s putting it off too long.  That is one of my worst habits.  I’ll begin this minute and write that letter to mamma that I have been putting off all week.  And I’ll take time to make it interesting, and write all the little things that I know she wants to hear about.  And I’ll not be so snappish with Eugenia, and make her feel that she was most to blame about our getting the measles.  I’ve taken a mean sort of pleasure in doing it before.  Poor thing, she seems to feel dreadfully bad about it, and there’s no use my adding anything to her distress.”  And Joyce, jumping up, took out her writing materials, and sat down at her desk.

At the same moment the Little Colonel was hanging around the door waiting for Mrs. Sherman, who sat in the room until Betty fell asleep.  There was a lingering tenderness in Lloyd’s kiss as she threw her arms around her mother’s neck, and, though no word was spoken, Mrs. Sherman knew that Lloyd had taken Betty’s little sermon to heart.

“Where is Eugenia, dear?” she asked.

“She has gone to her room, I think.”

“I want to have a little talk with her.  She has seemed so miserable and unhappy, since all this happened.  The poor child has nearly made herself ill worrying about it.”

Across the hall Eugenia had thrown herself down on her bed, and was staring out of the windows.  She saw nothing of the summer skies outside, or any of all that outdoor brightness.  Her gaze was turned inward on herself.