Page:The Bostonians (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886).djvu/408

 what he had done to earn the honour of being the subject of it. His eyes met Verena's as she looked up at him from her place at Miss Birdseye's feet, and he saw she was following his thought, throwing herself into it, and trying to communicate to him a wish. The wish touched him immensely; she was dreadfully afraid he would betray her to Miss Birdseye—let her know how she had cooled off. Verena was ashamed of that now, and trembled at the danger of exposure; her eyes adjured him to be careful of what he said. Her tremor made him glow a little in return, for it seemed to him the fullest confession of his influence she had yet made.

'We have been a very happy little party,' she said to the old lady. 'It is delightful that you should have been able to be with us all these weeks.'

'It has been a great rest. I am very tired. I can't speak much. It has been a lovely time. I have done so much—so many things.'

'I guess I wouldn't talk much, Miss Birdseye,' said Doctor Prance, who had now knelt down on the other side of her. 'We know how much you have done. Don't you suppose every one knows your life?'

'It isn't much—only I tried to take hold. When I look back from here, from where we've sat, I can measure the progress. That's what I wanted to say to you and Mr. Ransom—because I'm going fast. Hold on to me, that's right; but you can't keep me. I don't want to stay now; I presume I shall join some of the others that we lost long ago. Their faces come back to me now, quite fresh. It seems as if they might be waiting; as if they were all there; as if they wanted to hear. You mustn't think there's no progress because you don't see it all right off; that's what I wanted to say. It isn't till you have gone a long way that you can feel what's been done. That's what I see when I look back from here; I see that the community wasn't half waked up when I was young.'

'It is you that have waked it up more than any one else, and it's for that we honour you, Miss Birdseye!' Verena cried, with a sudden violence of emotion. 'If you were to live for a thousand years, you would think only of others—