"I think, dear, the vultures will all be in Economy to-day."
"All except Mrs. Frost, mother dear. She can't get away. But she can
always run across the street to borrow a cup of soda."
So Lynn knelt for a moment in her quiet room, then came down, kissed
her mother and father with a face of brave serenity, and went down the
maple shaded street with her silk work bag in her hand. And none too
soon. As she tapped at the door of the Carter house she saw Mrs. Frost
ambling purposefully out of the Gibson gate with a tea cup in her hand.
"Oh, hurry upstairs and stay there a minute till I get rid of Mrs.
Frost," Lynn whispered smiling as her hostess let her in. "I've come to
spend the day with you, and she'll stay till she's told you all the
news and there won't be any left for me."
Mrs. Carter, greatly delighted with Lynn's company, hurried obediently
up the stairs and Lynn met the interloper, supplied her with the cup of
salt she had come for this time, said Mrs. Carter was upstairs making
the beds and she wouldn't bother her to come down,--beds, mind
you, as if Mark was at home of course--and Mrs. Frost went back across
the street puzzled and baffled and resolved to come back later for an
egg after that forward young daughter of the minister was gone.
Lynn locked the front door and ran up stairs. She tolled her hostess up
to the attic to show her some ancient gowns and poke bonnets that she
hadn't seen since she was a little girl in which she and Mark used to
dress up and play history stories.
Half the morning she kept her up there looking at garments long folded
away, whose wearers had slept in the church yard many years; trinkets
of other days, quaint old pictures, photographs and daguerreotypes, and
a beautiful curl of Mark's--: "Marilyn, I'm going to give that to you," the mother said as she saw
the shining thing lying in the girl's hand, "There's no one living to
care for it after I'm gone, and you will keep it I know till you're
sure there's no one would want it I--mean--!"
"I understand what you mean," said Marilyn, "I will keep it and love
it--for you--and for him. And if there is ever anybody else that--
deserves it--why I'll give it to them--!" Then they both laughed to
hide the tears behind the unspoken thoughts, and the mother added a
little stubbed shoe and a sheer muslin cap, all delicate embroidery and
hemstitching: "They go together," she said simply, and Lynn wrapped them all
carefully in a bit of tissue paper and laid them in her silk bag. As
she turned away she held it close to her heart while the mother closed
the shutters. She shuddered to think of the place where Mark was
sitting now, being tried for his life. Her heart flew over the road,
entered the court and stood close by his side, with her hand on his
shoulder, and then slipped it in his. She wondered if he knew that she
was praying, praying, praying for him and standing by him, taking the
burden of what would have been his mother's grief if she had known, as
well as the heavy burden of her own sorrow.