"
Involuntarily Ethie's hand rested itself on the chair where Richard had
sat, and Ethie's face crimsoned where Aunt Barbara asked:
"Do you love Richard now?"
"I cannot tell. I only know that I have dreamed of him so many, many
times, and thought it would be such perfect rest to put my tired head in
his lap, as I never did put it. When I was on the ocean, coming home,
there was a fearful storm, and I prayed so earnestly to live till I
could hear him say that he forgave me for all the trouble I have caused
him. I might not love him if I were to see him again just as he used to
be. Sometimes I think I should not, but I would try. Write to him,
auntie, please, and tell him I am here, but nothing more. Don't say I
want to see him, or that I am changed from the willful, high-tempered
Ethie who made him so unhappy, for perhaps I am not."
A while then they talked of Aunt Van Buren, and Frank, and Nettie, and
Susie Granger, who was married to a missionary and gone to heathen
lands; and the clock was striking one before Aunt Barbara lighted her
darling up to the old room, and kissing her good-night, went back to
weep glad tears of joy in the rocking-chair by the hearth, and to thank
her Heavenly Father for sending home her long lost Ethelyn.
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