“Do you take this man . . . for better . . . for worse . . . death do you part?”

“I do.”

The same solemn question, solemnly answered. Would it be as faithfully kept? Abbie wondered.

And now it was all over. Katherine and Jimmie had left for the east. The big house had been quietly put to rights by two soft-footed maids. The whole Deal clan was gathering in the sun-room with its striking green and black and orchid English chintz hangings, and its fountain spraying over cool ferns and rocks.

Emma was bustling about hospitably, seeing that every one was comfortable. “Come on in, Donald. Sit here, Grace.”

Standing in the doorway, Abbie heard Margaret coaxing Fred Jr.’s youngest with “Come to Grandma, Baby.” It was still hard for Abbie to remember that two of her children were grandparents.

Then they saw her standing in the doorway.

“Come in, Mother.”

“Sit here, Mother.”

“No,—over here, Mother.”

Mack brought a cushion, Isabelle a stool.

“Are you comfortable, Mother?”

How they thought of her bodily comfort,—always her physical needs. Not one ever said, “Are you sad, Mother?” or “How does your mind feel?” or “Does anything hurt your heart?”

Abbie, sitting in the big ivory chair with cushions at her back, found herself slipping away from the group, standing apart from it, looking at the members of it in a detached way. How efficient they all were,—and how smart,—and how easily they did things. They went hither and yon, either for business or pleasure affairs,—into Chicago, down south . . . sometimes abroad. Mack, now, was saying something about going down to New York the last of the week.

“I had a chance . . .” For the first time Abbie Deal spoke. Her voice cracked a little because of its age. From the depths of the big chair it cracked in its earnestness. “I had a chance to go to New York once.”

Grace looked up quickly and then walked over to Isabelle. She spoke very low and turned her head so that her mother might not hear: “See! That’s what I’ve been telling you. I’ve noticed that in her quite a little lately. Just detached sentences like that with no special meaning. It would just kill me if her mind . . . at the last. . . . But she does that quite often, now. ‘Well, well, the clock hands go ‘round,’ she’ll say, right out of a clear sky. Or, ‘Dear, dear, the winds blew it all away.’ And now this one, ‘I had a chance to go to New York, once,’ . . . childish, that way.”

In the big chair, Abbie Deal was chuckling a little to herself, shaking with silent laughter.

“What’s the joke, Mother?” Mack spoke from across the room.

“Nothing much. I was just wondering about all of you . . . now . . . if I had gone.”

“See . . .?” Grace was grave in her anxiety, “. . . like that.”