On one or two occasions, indeed, they had been surprised in an uncanny
semblance of a caress, and once in a while an almost supernatural
retrospect had lit up and vanished again in an unaccustomed tender word;
and to have been present then was to feel somehow frightened.

Ah! the gay young leaves no longer kiss across in the morning sun, but
the stern old trees have meetings you know not of far beneath the
ground. Their roots are twisted and twined in a wonderful embrace there;
there in the dark they are very close together, and shall not be
wrenched apart without groanings that cannot be uttered.

Jenny can hardly be said to have missed her father, except through her
mother, who seemed suddenly to grow a little deafer, a little more
dim-sighted, just a trifle less brisk and busy than before, and with a
touch about her of that old-age awesomeness that mutters to itself in
corners and seems to know strange things.

Yes, Jane missed her John. Her old heart knew that he was no longer
sitting in the kitchen.




CHAPTER XV


JENNY'S BOTTOM DRAWER

Jenny and her old mother began to grow closer to each other at this
time. Perhaps it was because the old woman felt lonelier, and perhaps,