Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/40

 Harriet had tasted, one after another, the natural joys and the natural sorrows of life, and now that she was nearing the further boundaries of middle life she had become more and more the practical woman—the woman of affairs; the woman who was oftener appealed to for counsel than for sympathy. Her smooth "false front," her black eyes, her straight nose and well-closed mouth were all calculated to command respect. She was tall, and she felt her height; physically as well as mentally and morally she was unbending.

Even her great sorrow, the death of her husband, which had occurred fifteen years previous, had come to be to her a regrettable fact rather than an active emotion. Years and a strong will had done their work.

Yet for many weeks after James Spencer's death Harriet had felt with consternation that she was not self-sufficient. A strange, unreasoning sense of helplessness had oppressed her, which was even harder to bear than her actual grief.

The most vivid memory which she had of her husband's last days was that of a certain gloomy afternoon in November, when she had sat at his bedside, and they had taken counsel together for the last time. It was several days before his death, which they both knew to be close at hand. She had been sitting, erect and self-contained, while her husband slept, sternly denying herself the luxury of grief, simply facing the inevitable with rigid endurance. The rain was pattering