Outwardly Fanny was changed. She was pale and quiet and her thick
lovely hair was always smooth now and glossy and carefully dressed. It
was the one thing she still could do for herself and she did it with a
pitiful care. She looked ten years younger, in a way. And her house
was spick and span at ten o'clock every morning now. From her chair
she directed the children and because in all Green Valley there was no
woman who knew better how work ought to be done it was well done. And
then came the long empty hours when she sat, as she was sitting now, in
her chair on the sunny side of the house where she could look at her
little sea of tulips and hyacinths and drink in their perfume.
She had been trying to crochet but had dropped her needle. It lay in
the grass at her feet. She could see it but she could not pick it up.
She had not as yet acquired the skill and the inventive faculty of an
invalid.
And so she sat there, staring at the bit of glistening steel as wave
after wave of bitterness swept over her. Her tragedy was still so new
that she could feel it with every breath. Every hour she was reminded
of her loss by a thousand little things like this crochet hook. She
was forced to sit still, her busy hands idle in her lap, while spring
was calling, calling everywhere.
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