But that,
she reasoned, would be needless expense. Since the night Richard spent
there, five years ago, no one had slept there, and no one should sleep
there, either, till Ethie came back again.
"Till Ethie comes again." Aunt Barbara rarely said that now, for with
each fleeting year the chance for Ethie's coming grew less and less,
until now she seldom spoke of it to Betty, the only person to whom she
ever talked of Ethie. Even with her she was usually very reticent,
unless something brought the wanderer to mind more vividly than usual.
Cleaning her room was such an occasion, and sitting down upon the floor,
while she darned a hole in the carpet which the turning had brought to
view, Aunt Barbara spoke of her darling, and the time when, a little
toddling thing of two years old, she first came to the homestead, and
was laid in that very room, and "on that very pillow," Aunt Barbara
said, seeing again the round hollow left by the little brown head when
the child awoke and stretched its fat arms toward her.
"Julia, her mother, died in that bed," Aunt Barbara went on, "and Ethie
always slept there after that.
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