Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/292

282 told her about Reba's illness. Reba made no reply to Aunt Emma's recital.

It wasn't until Aunt Emma was slipping the card back into its small envelope that the girl spoke. Then, "That isn't my name any more," she said quietly, her eyes indicating the tiny envelope, where Louise had written boldly in ink Miss Rebecca Jerome.

"No, I suppose not," Aunt Emma acquiesced, nervously. Reba had made no reference to her marriage since her brain had cleared.

"My name is Mrs. Nathaniel Cawthorne now," she announced.

"Mrs. what?" exclaimed Aunt Emma. "I didn't quite get it. Mrs. what, did you say?"

"Mrs. Nathaniel Cawthorne," repeated Reba distinctly, and back went her gaze to the ceiling.

Mrs. Nathaniel Cawthorne! They all repeated the unexpected name in awe-struck whispers downstairs that night around Eunice's wheel-chair. Mrs. Nathaniel Cawthorne! "Who's Chadwick Booth then?" That was what Aunt Emma ought to have demanded immediately, as if without forethought. It was difficult to introduce the subject the next day.

It was more difficult still as time went on, and Reba sank deeper into mysterious silence, as she lay so quiet upon her pillow, gazing sometimes out of the window with those big eyes of hers, at the tell-tale limbs of bare elm and maple (their leaves had not even begun to turn in September); sometimes at the wide gold band upon the third finger of her left hand; sometimes, most often, at the cracks upon the ceiling—climbing their difficult ascents slowly, painstakingly, plunging down their precipitous cliffs softly,