Chapter 14 - Page 2

again. It was the portrait of a slight small girl with wistful eyes and an innocent face.

"I felt sure that it was she," he said in a lowered voice, "and you are quite right in saying that she seems to fill the room."

The mother put her hand upon her son's arm. He had turned his face towards the window. It seemed to Baird that her light touch was at once an appeal and a consolation.

"She filled the whole house when she was here," she said; "and yet she was only a quiet little thing. She had a bright way with her quietness and was so happy and busy. It is my comfort now to remember that she was always happy--happy to the last, Lucien tells me."

She looked up at her son's averted face as if expecting him to speak, and he responded at once, though in his usual mechanical way.

"To the last," he said; "she had no fear and suffered no pain."

The little woman watched him with tender, wistful eyes; two large tears welled up and slipped down her cheeks, but she smiled softly as they fell.

"She had so wanted to go to Italy," she said; "and was so happy to be there. And at the last it was such a lovely day, and she enjoyed it so and was propped up on a sofa near the window, and looked out at the blue sky and the mountains, and made a little sketch. Tell him, Lucien," and she touched his arm again.

"I shall be glad to hear," said Baird, "but you must not tire yourself by standing," and he took her hand gently and led her to a chair and sat down beside her, still holding her hand.

But Latimer remained standing, resting his elbow upon the mantel and looking down at the floor as he spoke.

"She was not well in England," the little mother put in, "but in Italy he thought she was better even to the very last."

"She was weak," Latimer went on, without raising his eyes, "but she was always bright and--and happy. She used to lie on the sofa by the window and look out and try to make sketches. She could see the Apennines, and it was the chestnut harvest and the peasants used to pass along the road on their way to the forests, and she liked to watch them. She used to try to sketch them too, but she was too weak; and when I wrote home for her, she made me describe them----"

"In her bright way!" said his mother. "I read the letters over and over again and they seemed like pictures--like her little pictures. It scarcely seems as if Lucien could have written them at all."

"The last day," said Latimer, "I had written home to say that she was better. She was so well in the morning that she talked of trying to take a drive, but in the afternoon she was a little tired----"

"But only a little," interrupted the mother eagerly, "and quite