Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/192

 in the morning sunlight that turned her hair to yellow, lost in strange, vague dreams; a shy happiness curved her lips even while the new haunting pain that tugged at her heart brought a tiny wrinkle between her slender eyebrows. She went about her simple household duties half unconsciously. The old servant watched her curiously. She could not understand why her mistress should wipe her eyes, if later she could sing till the dim parlor thrilled to the sweet old tunes. Nor did Miss Sabina herself quite certainly know. She was of a simple, modest generation that analyzed little: the rose of her life she could shut away forever, hidden in some precious yellowed book, but she could not tear apart the leaves, even to know it better.

To Miss Ellsworth, who came in later, hurried and amazed, she was inexplicable. She had travelled much, this successful, ordinary woman, and she was well educated, as women count such matters to-day; but this quiet spinster, sitting