“I had one of my attacks after supper, and sent Norah for Dr. Ellridge.  I thought I had better,” Mrs. Merrill explained, feebly.  She sighed and looked at the doctor, who understood perfectly, but did not betray himself.  He was, in fact, rather flattered.

“Yes, your mother has been feeling quite badly, but she will be all right now,” he said to Lily.

“I am sorry you did not feel well, mother,” Lily said, sweetly.  Then she got her fancy-work from her little silk bag on the table and seated herself, after removing her wraps.

Her mother sighed.  The doctor’s mouth assumed a little, humorous pucker.

Lily looked at her mother with affectionate interest.  She was quite accustomed to slight attacks of indigestion which her mother often had, and was not much alarmed, still she felt a little anxious.  “You are sure you are better, mother?” she said.

“Oh yes, she is much better,” the doctor answered for her.  “There is nothing for you to be alarmed about.”

“I am so glad,” said Lily.

She took another stitch in her fancy-work, and her beautiful face took on an almost seraphic expression; she was thinking of George Ramsey.  She hardly noticed when the doctor took his leave, and she did not in the least understand her mother’s sigh when the door closed.  For her the gates of love were wide open, but she had no conception that for her mother they were not shut until she should go to heaven to join her father.

Chapter XX

The next evening Maria, as usual, went to church with her two aunts.  Henry Stillman remained at home reading the Sunday paper.  He took a certain delight in so doing, although he knew, in the depths of his soul, that his delight was absurd.  He knew perfectly well that it did not make a feather’s weight of difference in the universal scheme of things that he, Henry Stillman, should remain at home and read the columns of scandal and politics in that paper, instead of going to church, and yet he liked to think that his small individuality and its revolt because of its injuries at the hands of fate had its weight, and was at least a small sting of revenge.

He watched his wife adjust her bonnet before the looking-glass in the sitting-room, and arrange carefully the bow beneath her withered chin, and a great pity for her, because she was no longer as she had been, but was so heavily marked by time, and a great jealousy that she should not lose the greatest of all things, which he himself had lost, came over him.  As she—­a little, prim, mild woman, in her old-fashioned winter cape and her bonnet, with its stiff tuft of velvet pansies—­passed him, he caught her thin, black-gloved hand and drew her close to him.

“I’m glad you are going to church, Eunice,” he said.

Eunice colored, and regarded him with a kind of abashed wonder.

“Why don’t you come, too, Henry?” she said, timidly.