'Father minds awfully,' he said at last, his look clouding. 'And
there's no one--to--to cheer him up.'
'He loves you so,' said Elizabeth, with difficulty, 'he always has
loved you so.'
The furrow on his brow grew a little deeper.
'But that doesn't matter now--nothing matters but--'
After a minute he resumed, in a rather stronger voice--'Tell me
about the woods--and the ash trees. I did laugh over that--old Hull
telling you there were none--and you--Why, I could have shown him
scores.'
She told him all the story of the woods, holding his hot hand in her
cool ones, damping his brow with the eau-de-cologne the nurses gave
her, and smiling at him. Her voice soothed him. It was so clear and
yet soft, like a song,--not a song of romance or passion, but like
the cheerful crooning songs that mothers sing. And her face reminded
him even more of his mother than Pamela's. She was not the least
like his mother, but there was something in her expression that
first youth cannot have--something comforting, profound, sustaining.
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