nings always she
had been waiting, good-humoured and gay, ready to stay home or go out;
with never a word of complaint for the delay of his prosperity, but only
encouragement and praise.

At times, as Joe talked on and on, in this mood of hungry wistful love
and humility and self-reproach, Ethel would bring herself back with a
jerk to the Amy she had known; but again she would feel herself borne
along upon the tide of his belief, and she was glad that it was so. So
the picture grew. Nor was it only when they talked. For often in long
silences, when she thought he was reading his paper, she would glance up
from her book and find him staring into the past. And again at the
piano, smoking and playing idly, his music made her realize how his mind
was groping back through the years, picking and choosing here and there
what he needed to build up his ideal.

This music at times made her curious, wondering what kind of a man he
had been before Amy took him in hand.

"Where did you learn to play like that, Joe?" He frowned a little.

"Oh, long ago."

He did not seem to care to go back of his marriage. So Ethel let him
continue his building; and though at times she smiled a little at some
of his fond recollections, still her own deep adoration of her older
sister, the whirl of happy memories of that vivid month in town, and the
sense of all that Amy had been planning to do for her, combined now with
her desperate loneliness to put Ethel in a mood where she gladly and
loyally believed almost anything good of her sister.

Christmas was only one example of many similar incidents. They had a
small Christmas tree for Susette, and they hung up her stocking as well,
and went out Christmas Eve and bought candy canes and dogs and dolls and
picture books. And although this was Ethel's idea, it was made to
appear as only the thing which Amy would have done had she lived.

So in these two hungry souls, groping for something bright and deep and
strong upon which they could live, swiftly and unawares to them both the
picture of Amy was stamped deep, idealized and beautified. In life it
had been fascinating, but now it was almost heroic as well. It was as
though the small gloved hand, which Ethel had noticed so many times, in
death had increased the power of its light, firm, tenacious hold.

Ethel began to feel more free, for Joe was no longer on her mind. More
than once, in fact, she was surprised at the way he seemed to be
settling