It was, indeed, as she had said, a very difficult choice; there was the
old, happy, tempting life at Winchcomb, the pleasant home where she
might now return, and live with the dear brothers and sisters without
feeling herself a burden upon her father's strained resources; and there
was the quiet monotonous daily round at Ivy House, the exacting invalid,
the uncongenial work, the lack of all young companionship, that already
seemed so hard to bear.
And yet, Edith thought, she really ought to stay. Wonderful as it
seemed, Aunt Rachel had grown to love her. How could she say to the
lonely, stricken woman, "I will go, and leave you alone"?
"Well, Edith?" said Miss Harley eagerly, when her niece came in again
after a prolonged absence.
"I will stay, Aunt Rachel, if my father will let me. I feel that I
cannot--ought not--to leave you after all that you have done for me."
So it was settled, after some demur on Dr. Harley's part, and the quiet
humdrum days went on again, and Edith found out how, as the poet says--
"Tasks, in hours of insight willed,
May be in hours of gloom fulfilled."
For Miss Harley, after that involuntary betrayal of her feelings,
relapsed into her own hard, irritable ways, and often made her niece's
life a very uncomfortable one.
Patiently and tenderly Edith nursed her aunt through the lingering
illness that went on from months to years; very rarely she found time
for a brief visit to the home where the little ones were fast growing
taller and wiser, the home which Jessie had now exchanged for one of her
own, and where careful Maude was still her mother's right hand.
Pages:
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409