And she was off and away, a slight, tense figure, half running down the road and out of sight among the hemlocks, while Christina leaned against one of the pillars of the porch and watched her go, feeling that loneliness of spirit before what has to be accepted, full of suffering and wrong though it might be.

There had been little tenderness in Ellen’s marriage, most of the time a cold war between a proud woman and a difficult, passionate man. In the last years Rufus had not been likable even to people outside the family—surly, with a chip on his shoulder. He had done some work for Cornelius on the place, but with an ill grace, skimped on the work and overcharged. Yet Christina remembered the way he handled his horses; the patience came out there, the real caring that he never had been able to show his wife or his children. Ellen must have done a lot of thinking to say what she had just said—remarkable Ellen!

“Cornelius!” she called, with a sudden need to reaffirm what could be reaffirmed here and now. And she walked quickly through the dark hall, past the huge umbrella-stand bear the grandchildren loved, and into the oak-paneled library where Cornelius sat exercising his paralyzed right hand slowly and patiently.

“You’re so good, darling,” she said, stooping to kiss him.

He gave her a quizzical glance.

“You must be starved, but Ellen turned up with a staggering letter she had found about what the school here was like in 1838—and we talked. It will only take a second to heat up the soup.”

Before she went out to the kitchen, Christina lifted a heavy log and laid it on the fire.

“Wish I could do that for you,” Cornelius said.

“Nonsense, keeps the old woman limber.” And off she ran to the kitchen, laid out orange linen napkins on the two trays, and the old Carbone pottery bowls and plates, and slipped English muffins into the toaster. “There,” she said to herself, “a little feast for two old lovers.”

Happiness welled up in her while she worked. How lucky I have been, she thought, how lucky I am! What was fatigue and the ache in her knee compared to being here together, at this very moment, she and Cornelius, with more than fifty years of companionship behind them. Yet, she thought, buttering the muffins, it’s not the past. What is precious is now. And she hurried because she could hardly wait to be sitting by his side, there was so much to tell him! She poured two glasses of milk, looked around to be sure she had everything, and went out with the tray.