was much more satisfactory than Johnny; she said, "God save us!
Mr. Maurice eloped? Who with, then? Well, well!" But Edith was still
abstracted. Time, as related to life, had acquired significance. At
dinner she regarded her father with troubled eyes. He, too, was old,
like Maurice's wife. He, too, as well as the bride, and her mother,
would die, sometime. And she and Maurice would have such awful
grief!... Something tightened in her throat; "Please 'scuse me," she
said, in a muffled voice; and, slipping out of her chair, made a dash
for the back door, and ran as hard as she could to her chicken house.
The little place was hot, and smelled of feathers; through the windows,
cobwebbed and dusty, the sunshine fell dimly on the hard earth floor, and
on an empty plate or two and a rusty, overturned tin pan. Here, sitting
on a convenient box, she could think things out undisturbed: Maurice, and
his lovely, dying Bride; herself, orphaned and alone; Johnny Bennett,
indifferent to all this oncoming grief! Probably Maurice was worrying
about it all the time! How long would the Bride live? Suddenly she
remembered her mother's age, and had a revulsion of hope for Maurice.
Perhaps his wife would live to be as old as mother? "Why, I hadn't
thought of that! Well, then, she will live--let's see: thirty-nine from
fifty leaves eleven--yes; the Bride will live eleven years!" Why, that
wasn't so terrible, after all. "That's as long as I have been alive!"
Obviously it would not be necessary to take care of Maurice for quite a
good while. "I guess," she reflected, "I'll have some children by that
time. And maybe I'll be married, too, for Maurice won't need me for
eleven years. But I don't know what I'd do with my husband then?" She
frowned; a husband would be bothering, if she had to go and live with
Maurice. "Oh, well, probably my husband will be so old, he'll die about
the time Maurice's wife does." She had meant to marry Johnny. "But I
won't. He's too young. He's only three years older 'an me. He might live
too long. I must get an old husband. I'll tell Johnny about it
to-morrow. I'll wear mourning," she thought; "a long veil! It's so
interesting. But not over my face--you can't see through it, and it
isn't sense not to be able to see." (The test Edith applied to conduct
was always, "Is it sense?") "Of course I shall feel badly about my
husband; but I've got to take care of Maurice.... Yes; I must get an old
one," she thought. "I must get o