such lordly style of
those miserable Jameses and Charleses, I will take the opportunity to
confess that I have inherited my father's thorough-going
democracy,--double measure, pressed down and running over. She not only
pardoned it, but I think she loved it in me, for his sake.

It was about a year and a half, I think, after he died, that she sent
for Aunt Alice to come to Creston. "Your aunt loves me," she said, when
she told us in her quiet way, "and I am so lonely now."

They had been the only children, and they loved each other,--how much, I
afterwards knew. And how much they love each other _now_, I like to
think,--quite freely and fully, and without shadow or doubt between
them, I dare to hope.

A picture of Aunt Alice always hung in mother's room. It was taken down
years ago. I never asked her where she put it. I remember it, though,
quite well; for mother's sake I am glad I do. For it was a pleasant face
to look upon, and a young, pure, happy face,--beautiful too, though with
none of the regal beauty crowned by my mother's massive hair, and
pencilled brows. It was a timid, girlish face, with reverent eyes, and
ripe, tremulous lips,--weak lips, as I remember them. From babyhood, I
felt a want in the face. I had, of course, no capacity to define it; it
was represented to me only by the fact that it differed from my
mother's.

She was teaching school out West when mother sent for her. I saw the
letter. It was just like my mother: "Alice, I need you. You and I ought
to have but one home now. Will you come?"

I saw, too, a bit of postscript to the answer: "I'm not fit that you
should love me so, Marie."

And how mother laughed at it!

When it was all settled, and the waiting weeks became at last a single
day, I hardly knew my mother. She was so full of fitful moods, and
little fantastic jokes! such a flush on her cheeks too, as she ran to
the window every five minutes, like a child! I remember how we went all
over the house together, she and I, to see that everything looked neat,
and bright, and welcome. And how we lingered in the guest-room, to put
the little finishing touches to its stillness, and coolness, and
coseyness. The best spread was on the bed, and the white folds smoothed
as only mother's fingers could smooth them; the curtain freshly washed,
and looped with its crimson cord; the blinds drawn, cool and green; the
late afternoon sunlight slanting through, in flecks upon the floor.
There were flowe