instances of mothers prematurely fading, and leaving their husbands alone with a young flock to rear, must be pressing upon Joe’s memory. Ralstons, Lovells, Lannings, Archers, van der Luydens—which one of them had not some grave to care for in a distant cemetery: graves of young relatives “in a decline,” sent abroad to be cured by balmy Italy? The Protestant grave-yards of Rome and Pisa were full of New York names; the vision of that familiar pilgrimage with a dying wife was one to turn the most ardent Ralston cold. And all the while, as she listened with bent head, Delia{73} kept repeating to herself: “This is easy; but how am I going to tell Charlotte?”
{72}
{73}
When poor Joe, late that evening, wrung her hand with a stammered farewell, she called him back abruptly from the threshold.
“You must let me see her first, please; you must wait till she sends for you—” and she winced a little at the alacrity of his acceptance. But no amount of rhetorical bolstering-up could make it easy for a young man to face what lay ahead of Joe; and her final glance at him was one of compassion....
The front door closed upon Joe, and she was roused by her husband’s touch on her shoulder.
“I never admired you more, darling. My wise Delia!”
Her head bent back, she took his kiss,{74} and then drew apart. The sparkle in his eyes she understood to be as much an invitation to her bloom as a tribute to her sagacity.
{74}
She held him at arms’ length. “What should you have done, Jim, if I’d had to tell you about myself what I’ve just told Joe about Chatty?”
A slight frown showed that he thought the question negligible, and hardly in her usual taste. “Come,” his strong arm entreated her.
She continued to stand away from him, with grave eyes. “Poor Chatty! Nothing left now—”
His own eyes grew grave, in instant sympathy. At such moments he was still the sentimental boy whom she could manage.
“Ah, poor Chatty, indeed!” He groped for the readiest panacea. “Lucky, now,{75} after all, that she has those paupers, isn’t it? I suppose a woman must have children to love—somebody else’s if not her own.” It was
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