"Je m'en irai," Mrs. Lamotte said at last, as she saw that her
presence was annoying Edith; and as the latter offered no
remonstrance, she left the room, and Edith was alone with her
confused thoughts.
Where was she? What room was this, with the deep window seats, and
that wide-mouthed fire-place? Who was this woman that puzzled her
so? Edith kept asking herself these questions, but could find for
them no satisfactory answer. Struggle as she might, she felt more
like a child returned to its home than like a stranger in a
strange land. Even the soft south wind, stealing through the open
casement, and fanning her feverish cheek, had something familiar
in its breath, as if it had stolen in upon her thus aforetime; and
when across the fields, she heard the negroes' song as they came
homeward from their toil, she laid her head upon the window sill,
and wept for the something which swept over her, something so
sweet, so sad, and yet so indescribable.
Fearing lest the Frenchwoman should return, she made a hasty
toilet, and then stole down to Nina, who, wholly exhausted with
the violence of her emotions at meeting Edith, lay perfectly still
upon her pillow, scarcely whiter than her own childish face, round
which a ray of the setting sun was shining, encircling it with a
halo of glorious beauty, and making her look like an angel of
purity and love.
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