Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/132

 but books are such a trouble to carry about, you know. No, I don’t think of anything else.”

What freedom, what a strange baseless exhilaration! Suppose—suppose it was all a mistake, and she should wake back to the old stubborn, perfunctory reality! Perhaps it was better, saner—that quiet taken-for-granted existence. Perhaps she regretted—but even with the half-fear at her heart she laughed at that. If wake she must, she loved the dream. How she trusted that man! “Always I will wait”—and he would. But seven years! She threw the thought behind her.

The next days passed in a swift, confused flight. She knew they were all discussing her, wondering at her changed face, her fresh, becoming clothes; they decided that she had had money left her.

“Some of my girls saw you shopping in Springfield last Saturday—they say you got some lovely waists,” said her fellow-assistant tentatively. “Was this