Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/462

424 Her Letters a Monologue by Alice Brown

ARJORIE! Marjorie! In here, dear. In your uncle's room. What is it, child? Some of those nourishing decoctions you follow me about with? Good little niece! Good little daughter! A niece is as good as a daughter, when it's Marjorie. Your uncle always said so. Give me the stuff, child. I'll take a bit of it, and by and by we'll have a Christian cup of tea. Lonesome in here? Here with his books, his desk, his picture hanging there to smile at me? Why, it's the spot where I feel nearest him. The picture is a comfort. Yes, indeed. I talk to it a lot. "Good morning, Tom," I say. "It looks like rain." Or, "The sun's out, Tom." [A knock.] Come! What is it, Wilkins? Oh, a letter! Thank you. That's all. Ah, from Ralph Gilbert, your uncle's chum. I wondered I didn't hear. In Egypt, now. Yes, travelling about. Just travelling. I cabled him. He says he can realize better than anybody else what I have lost. That's true! that's true! He says he knew from your uncle's letters how happy we were, the kind of life we lived together. Ah, but he couldn't know, Marjorie, could he? Nobody could really know. He says—Oh, I don't like this. It's only a form of words, but I don't like it. He says, "The world will be a different place now Tom has gone away from us." Ralph won't say died. He's afraid of hurting me. But that word never hurts me. It's a beautiful, dear, simple word—"died"—worth all their weak phrases to avoid it. I say it over and over. It means, "My husband has been promoted