They are going to take up my last mother, and the little bit
of Miggie to-day, and Marie is so flurried."
Arthur's step was now heard in the hall, and this it was which so
excited Edith that she failed to catch the word Marie, or to
understand that it was Mrs. Lamotte who was worried about the
removal of the bodies. In a moment Arthur appeared, bringing a
delicate bouquet for Nina, and a world of sunshine to Edith. He
was changed, Edith saw as she looked at him now, and yet she liked
his face better than before. He seemed to her like one over whom
the fire had passed, purifying as it burned, and leaving a better
metal than it had found. He was wholly self-possessed this
morning, greeting her as if the scene in the Deering woods had
never been enacted, and she could hardly believe that they were
the same, the Arthur of one year ago, and the Arthur of to-day;
the quiet, elegant young man, who, with more than womanly
tenderness, pushed Nina's curls back under her lace cap, kissed
her forehead, and then asked Edith if she did not look like a
little nun with her hair so plain.
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