The Prisoner

								

"It was the late afternoon," said he. "In the early spring. Perhaps it
was a day like this. I don't remember. Well, I had her come in. Before I
knew where I was, there she stood, about there, in the middle of the
floor. You know how she looked."
"She looked like Lydia," said Anne. It was not jealousy in her voice,
only yearning. It seemed very desirable to look like Lydia or their
mother.
"She was much older," said the colonel. "She looked very worried indeed.
I remember what she said, remember every word of it. She said, 'Mr.
Blake, I'm a widow, you know. And I've got two little girls. What am I
going to do with them?'"
"She did the best thing anybody could," said Lydia. "She gave us to
you."
"I have an idea I cried," said the colonel. "Really I know I did. And it
broke her all up. She'd come somehow expecting Jeff's father to account
for the whole business and assure her there might be a few cents left.
But when she saw me dribbling like a seal, she just ran forward and put
her arms round me. And she said, 'My dear! my dear!' I hear her now."
"So do I," said Anne, in her low tone. "So do I."
"And you never'd seen each other before," said Lydia, in an ecstasy of
youthful love for love. "I call that great."
"We were married in a week," said the colonel. "She'd come to ask me to
help her, do you see? but she found I was the one that needed help. And
I had an idea I might do something for her by taking the responsibility
of her two little girls. But it was no use pretending. I didn't marry
her for anything except, once I'd seen her, I couldn't live without
her."
"Wasn't mother darling!" Lydia threw at him, in a passionate sympathy.
"You're like her, Lydia," said Anne again.
But Lydia shook her head.
"I couldn't hold a candle to mother," said she. "My eyes may be like
hers. So is my forehead. So's my mouth. But I'm no more like mother----"
"It was her sympathy," said their father quietly, seeming to have
settled it all a long time before. "She was the most absolutely loving
person. You girls may be like her in that, too. I'm sure you're
inconceivably good to me."
"I'd like to love people to death," said Lydia, with the fierceness of
passion not yet named and recognised, but putting up its beautiful head
now and then to look her remindingly in the eyes. "I'd like to love
everybody. You first, Farvie, you and Anne. And Jeff. I'm going to love
Jeff like a house-a-fire. He doesn't know what it is to have a sister.
When he comes in I'm going to run up to him as if I couldn't wait to get
him into the room, and kiss him and say, 'Here we are, Jeff. I'm Lyddy.
Here's Anne.' You kiss him, too, Anne."
"Why," said Anne softly, "I wonder."
"You needn't stop to wonder," said Lydia. "You do it. He's going to
realise he's got sisters anyway--and a father."
The same thought sprang at once into their three minds. It was not
uncommon. They lived so close together, in such a unison of interests,