'That is my duty just now.'
"I could never have risen to such a height.
"She never spoke bitterly except once, when Susan said something about
spring being here at last, and Gertrude said,
"'Can the spring really come this year?'
"Then she laughed--such a dreadful little laugh, just as one might
laugh in the face of death, I think, and said,
"'Observe my egotism. Because I, Gertrude Oliver, have lost a friend, it
is incredible that the spring can come as usual. The spring does not
fail because of the million agonies of others--but for mine--oh, can
the universe go on?'
"'Don't feel bitter with yourself, dear,' mother said gently. 'It is a
very natural thing to feel as if things couldn't go on just the same
when some great blow has changed the world for us. We all feel like
that.'
"Then that horrid old Cousin Sophia of Susan's piped up. She was sitting
there, knitting and croaking like an old 'raven of bode and woe' as
Walter used to call her.
"'You ain't as bad off as some, Miss Oliver,' she said, 'and you
shouldn't take it so hard. There's some as has lost their husbands;
that's a hard blow; and there's some as has lost their sons. You haven't
lost either husband or son.'
"'No,' said Gertrude, more bitterly still. 'It's true I haven't lost a
husband--I have only lost the man who would have been my husband. I
have lost no son--only the sons and daughters who might have been born
to me--who will never be born to me now.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266