"But I don't, Leslie," cried Julia Cloud in distress. "I never did!"
"Are you really true, Cloudy, dear? You're such a dear, unselfish Cloudy. How shall we ever quite be sure she isn't giving him up just for us, Allison?"
"Children, listen!" said Julia Cloud, suddenly putting a quieting hand on each young hand in her lap. "I'll tell you something I never told to a living soul."
There was that in her voice that thrilled them into silence. It was as if she suddenly opened the door of her soul and let them look in on her real self as only God saw her. Their fingers tightened in sympathy as she went on.
"A long time ago--a great many years ago--perhaps you would laugh and think me foolish if you knew how many----"
"Oh, no, Cloudy, never!" said Leslie softly; and Allison growled a dissenting note.
"Well--there was some one whom I loved--who died. That is all; only--I never could love anybody that way again. Marriage without a love like that is a desecration."
"O Cloudy! We never knew----" murmured Leslie.
"No one ever knew, dear. He was very young. We were both scarcely more than children. I was only fourteen----"
"O Cloudy! How beautiful! And you have kept it all these years! Won't you--tell us just a little about it? I think it is wonderful; don't you, Allison?"
"Yes, wonderful!" said Allison in that deep, full tone of his that revealed a man's soul growing in the boy's heart.
"There is very little to tell, dear. He was a neighbor's son. We went to school together, and sometimes took walks on Saturdays. He rode me on his sled, and helped me fasten on my skates, and carried my books; and we played together when we had time to play. Then his people moved away out West; and he kissed me good-by, and told me he was coming back for me some day. That was all there was to it except a few little letters. Then they stopped, and one day his grandmother wrote that he had been drowned saving the life of a little child. Can you understand why I want to wait and be ready for him over there where he is gone? I keep feeling God will let him come for me when my life down here is over."
There was a long silence during which the young hands gripped hers closely, and the young thoughts grew strangely wise with insight into human life and all its joys and sorrows. They were thinking out in detail just what their aunt had missed, the sweet things that every woman hopes for, and thinks about alone with God; of love, strong care, little children, and a home. She had missed it all; and yet she had its image in her heart, and had been true to her first thought of it all the years. Now, when it was offered her again, she would not give up the old love for a new, would not take what was left of life. She would wait till the morning broke and her boy met her on the other shore.