I saw her again as she played with her doll under the trees. Again I
rode by her side into Waterloo; and again she ran back to me to bid me
her sweet good-by after I had given her up. Often I did not give her up,
but brought her to my new home, built my house with her to cheer me; and
often I imagined that she was beside me, sheltered from the storm and
happy while she could be by my side and in my arms. Oh, I lived whole
lives over and over again with Virginia that lonely winter. She had
been such a dear little creature. I had been able to do so much for her
in getting her away from what she thought a great danger. She had done
so much for me, too. Had not she and I cried together over the memory of
my mother? Had she not been my intimate companion for weeks, cooked for
me, planned for me, advised me, dreamed with me? It was not nearly so
lonely as you might think, in one sense of the word.
And now I had not seen her for such a long time that I wondered if she
were not forgetting me. No wonder that I was a little flighty, as I
crowded myself into my poor best suit which I was so rapidly outgrowing,
and walked into Monterey Centre in time to be Judge Horace Stone's
body-guard the night of the party--I heard it called a reception--at
Governor DeWitt Clinton Wade's new Gothic house, over in Benton Township
that was to be.
I was proportionately miserable when I called at Elder Thorndyke's, to
find that Virginia was not ready to see me, and that Grandma Thorndyke
seemed cool and somehow different toward me.
Pages:
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290