Her rooms were all in order. She had made them so herself,
sweeping and dusting, and even leaving Richard's dressing-gown and
slippers by the chair where he usually sat the evenings he was at home.
The vacancy left by the piano would strike him at once, she knew, and so
she moved a tall bookcase up there, and put a sofa where the bookcase
had been, and a large chair where the sofa had been, and pushed the
center table into the large chair's place; and then her work was
done--the last she would ever do in that room, or for Richard either.
The last of everything is sad, and Ethie felt a thrill of pain as she
whispered to herself, "It is the last, last time," and then thought of
the outer world which lay all unknown before her. She would not allow
herself to think, lest her courage should give way, and tried, by
dwelling continually upon Richard's cruel words, to steel her heart
against the good impulses which were beginning to suggest that what she
was doing might not, after all, be the wisest course. What would the
world say?--and dear Aunt Barbara, too? How it would wring her heart
when she heard the end to which her darling had come! And Andy--simple,
conscientious, praying Andy--Ethie's heart came up in her throat when
she thought of him and his grief at her desertion.
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