in the letter which she did not show; not that it
was unfeeling, she told my wife afterwards, but that it exhibited a
worldly-mindedness that she could not have conceived of in Margaret.
She could bear separation from the girl on whom she had bestowed her
tenderest affection, that she had schooled herself to expect upon
her marriage--that, indeed, was only a part of her life of willing
self-sacrifice--their paths must lie apart, and she could hope to see
little of her. But what she could not bear was the separation in spirit,
the wrenching apart of sympathy, the loss of her heart, and the thought
of her going farther and farther away into that world whose cynical
and materialistic view of life made her shudder. I think there are few
tragedies in life comparable to this to a sensitive, trusting soul--not
death itself, with its gracious healing and oblivion and pathos. Family
quarrels have something sustaining in them, something of a sense of
wrong and even indignation to keep up the spirits. There was no family
quarrel here, no indignation, just simple, helpless grief and sense of
loss. In one sense it seemed to the gentle spinster that her own life
was ended, she had lived so in this girl--ever since she came to her
a child, in long curls and short frocks, the sweetest, most trustful,
mischievous, affectionate thing. These two then never had had any
secrets, never any pleasure, never any griefs they did not share. She
had seen the child's mind unfold, the girl's grace and intelligence, the
woman's character. Oh, Margaret, she cried, to herself, if you only knew
what you are to me!

Margaret's little chamber in the cottage was always kept ready for her,
much in the condition she had left it. She might come back at any
time, and be a girl again. Here were many of the things which she had
cherished; indeed everything in the room spoke of the simple days of
her maidenhood. It was here that Miss Forsythe sat in her loneliness
the morning after she received the letter, by the window with the muslin
curtain, looking out through the shrubbery to the blue hills. She must
be here; she could stay nowhere else in the house, for here the little
Margaret came back to her. Ah, and when she turned, would she hear the
quick steps and see the smiling face, and would she put back the tangled
hair and lift her up and kiss her? There in that closet still hung
articles of her clothing-dresses that had been laid aside when she
became a woman-