Harriet was
amused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable
curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,
and since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has
come to ours.
She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in
front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to
say of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found
that contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours
than in our own. All her life long she has lived here in this community,
a world of small things, one is tempted to say, with a sort of expected
and predictable life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently
stirring her rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small,
often-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows what
other orderly, habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who knows when he
looks at you or at me that there is anything in us beyond the
humdrummery of this day?
In front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old-fashioned
flowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over the small, very white
door with its shiny knob, creeps a white clematis vine.
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