Then, as I drew nearer, she smiled and showed gleaming white teeth, and
her eyes crinkled and nearly closed up as she did so.
"Oh, my God!" I shrieked; "it is Mary Seraskier!"
* * * * *
I ran to her--I threw myself at her feet, and buried my face in her lap,
and there I sobbed like a hysterical child, while she tried to soothe me
as one soothes a child.
After a while I looked up into her face. It was old and worn and gray,
and her hair nearly white, like mine. I had never seen her like that
before; she had always been eight-and-twenty. But age became her
well--she looked so benignly beautiful and calm and grand that I was
awed--and quick, chill waves went down my backbone.
Her dress and bonnet were old and shabby, her gloves had been
mended--old kid gloves with fur about the wrists. She drew them off, and
took my hands and made me sit beside her, and looked at me for a while
with all her might in silence.
At length she said: "Gogo mio, I know all you have been through by the
touch of your hands. Does the touch of mine tell you nothing?"
It told me nothing but her huge love for me, which was all I cared for,
and I said so.
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