"Oh," cried the girl, "I'm sorry!" A sharp pang pierced her through and through.
"Child," said Thorpe, his wrinkled hand closing on hers, "to those who love, there is no such thing as Death. Do you think that just because she is dead, I have ceased to care? Death has made her mine as Life could never do. She walks beside me daily, as though we were hand in hand. Her tenderness makes me tender, her courage gives me strength, her great charity makes me kind. Her belief has made my own faith more sure, her steadfastness keeps me from faltering, and her patience enables me to wait until the end, when I go, into the Unknown, to meet her. Child, I do not know if there be a Heaven, but if God gives me her, and her love, as I knew it once, I shall not ask for more."
Unable to say more, for the tears, Thorpe stumbled out of the room. Araminta's own eyes were wet and her heart was strangely tender to all the world. Miss Evelina, the kitten, Mr. Thorpe, Doctor Ralph--even Aunt Hitty--were all included in a wave of unspeakable tenderness.
Never stopping to question, Araminta sped out of the house, her feet following where her heart led. Past the crossroads, to the right, down into the village, across the tracks, then sharply to the left, up to Doctor Dexter's, where, only a few weeks before, she had gone in the hope of seeing Doctor Ralph, Araminta ran like some young Atalanta, across whose path no golden apples were thrown.
The door was open, and she rushed in, unthinking, turning by instinct into the library, where Ralph sat alone, leaning his head upon his hand.
"Doctor Ralph!" she cried, "I've come!"
He looked up, then started forward. One look into her glorified face told him all that he needed to know. "Undine," he said, huskily, "have you found your soul?"
"I don't know what I've found," sobbed Araminta, from the shelter of his arms, "but I've come, to stay with you always, if you'll let me!"
"If I'll let you," murmured Ralph, kissing away her happy tears. "You little saint, it's what I want as I want nothing else in the world."
"I know what it is to be married," said Araminta, after a little, her grave, sweet eyes on his. "I asked Mr. Thorpe to-night and he told me. It's to be always with the one you love, and never to mind what anybody else says or does. It's to help each other bear everything and be twice as happy because you're together. It means that somebody will always help you when things go wrong, and there'll always be something you can lean on. You'll never be afraid of anything, because you're together. My mother was married, your mother was married, and I've found out that Aunt Hitty's mother was married, too.