"I can bear anything but unreasonableness."
She nodded. "I know, I never could please my grandmother--she brought
me up. My mother and father died when I was a baby. I think
grandmother hated me; she thought everything I did was wrong. Oh, I
was so miserable! And when I was eighteen I got married--and that was
a mistake."
Sam gazed up at her in silent sympathy,
"I mean my--husband was so much older than I," she said. Then with an
evident effort to change the subject she added that one would think it
would be simple enough to be happy; "all my life I only wanted to be
happy," she said.
"You're happy now, aren't you?" he asked,
She looked down at him--he was sitting on a stool before the fire near
her feet--and laughed with a catching of the breath. "Oh, yes, yes;
I'm happy."
And Sara caught his breath too, for there were tears in her eyes.
But instantly she veered away from personalities. "What is that scar
on your wrist?"
Sam looked down at his hands clasped about his knees, and blushed
faintly. "Oh, nothing; I was very young when that happened."
"How did it happen?" she asked absently. It was often possible to
start Sam talking and then think her own thoughts without
interruption.
"Why, I was about twelve, I believe," Sam said, "and Miss Ellen
Bailey--she used to teach school here, then she got married and went
out West;--she gave me a little gold image of Pasht, at least I
thought it was gold.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43