Mrs. Champney was putting the very last things into her bag, and Mrs.Maxwell and Mrs. Deane sat watching her. The room in which she hadlived for nearly four years was already strange and unfamiliar. Thesilver toilet articles were gone from the bureau. The cupboard doorstood open, showing empty hooks and shelves. The little water colorsof Italian scenes had vanished from the walls, and the books from thetable. All those things were gone which had so charmed and interestedMrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane.
They were old ladies, and to them Jessica Champney at fifty was notold at all. With her gayety, her lively interest in life, and herdainty clothes, she seemed to them altogether young—girlish, even, inher enthusiastic moments, and always interesting. They loved andadmired her, and were heavy-hearted at her going.
“You’ve forgotten the pussy cat, Jessica,” Mrs. Maxwell gravelyremarked.
“Oh, so I have!” said Mrs. Champney.
Hanging beside the bureau was a black velvet kitten with a strip ofsandpaper fastened across its back, and underneath it the inscription:
It was intended, of course, for striking matches. As Mrs. Champneynever had occasion to strike a match, this little object was notremarkably useful. Nor, being a woman of taste, would she haveadmitted that it was in the least ornamental; but it was precious toher—so precious that a sob rose in her throat as she took it down fromthe wall.
She showed a bright enough face to the old ladies, however, as shecarried the kitten across the room and laid it in the bag. She hadoften talked to these old friends about her past—about her twoheavenly winters in Italy, about her girlhood “down East,” about allsorts of lively and amusing things that she had seen and done; but shehad said very, very little about the period to which the velvet kittenbelonged.
It had been given to her in the early days of her married life by agrateful and adoring cook. It had hung on the wall of her bedroom inthat shabby, sunny old house in Connecticut where her three childrenhad been born. She could not think of that room unmoved, and she didnot care to talk of it to any one.
Not that it was sad to remember those bygone days. There was no traceof bitterness in the memory. It was all tender and beautiful, andsometimes she recalled things that made her laugh through the tears;but even those things she couldn’t talk about.
There was, for instance, that ridiculous morning when grandpa had cometo see the baby, the unique and miraculous first baby. He had sat downin a chair and very gingerly taken the small bundle in his arms, andthe chair had suddenly broken beneath his portly form. Down hecrashed, his blue eyes staring wildly, his great white mustache fairlybristling with horror, the invaluable infant held aloft in both hands.If she had begun to tell about that, in the very middle of it anothermemory might have come—a recollection of the day when she had sat inthat same room, the door locked, her hands tightly clasped, her eyesstaring ahead of her at the years that must be lived without herhusband, her friend and lover.
She had thought she could not bear that, but she had borne it; and thetime had come when the memory of her husband was no longer an anguishand a futile regret, but a benediction. She had lived a happy lifewith her children. They were all married now, and in homes of theirown, and sh