Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/180

172 tide of her young despair. She remembered that she had not washed her breakfast dishes, and rose with a certain sense of relief. She lit her lamp and put on a white apron, then washed her china, drying it daintily. There was comfort in the act. It was a kind of link between this existence of shifting sand and the old life. The linen towel in her hand and the tiny dish-pan carried her thoughts back to the days when her old-fashioned mother had washed the silver in the mornings on the dining-room table.

Helen paused, with soapsuds on her hands, in sudden longing for the warmth and comfort and safety of that unenlightened home. She could see it distinctly—the elm trees by the gate, the green embankment, and, inside the broad door, the great hall with its deep fireplace and leather-cushioned chairs.

"I am going back," she said simply.