"
"Yes. But he was old; my girl is young."
He stood a moment, with the press door open, a perplexed trouble in his
dim eyes; the divine faith of love and the mule-like stupidity of
ignorance made him cling to this one thought without power of judgment in
it.
"They say she would be sixty," he said, with a little dreary smile. "But
that is absurd, you know. Why, she had cheeks like yours, and she would
run--no lapwing could fly faster over corn. These are her things, you
see; yes--all of them. That is the sprig of sweetbrier she wore in her
belt the day before the wagon knocked her down and killed her. I have
never touched the things. But look here, Bebee, you are a good child and
true, and like her just a little. I mean to give you her silver clasps.
They were her great-great-great-grandmother's before her. God knows how
old they are not. And a girl should have some little wealth of that sort;
and for Antoine's sake--"
The old man stayed behind, closing the press door upon the
lavender-scented clothes, and sitting down in the dull shadow of the hut
to think of his daughter, dead forty summers and more.
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