CHAPTER VIII.

FEARS AND HOPES.


Many thoughts filled my mind after what Clara had said, and I thought
much of her beautiful faith as to her husband and his waiting for her;
of her trust in his coming, and of the reality with which came into her
existence this wonderful future that waits for us all if (and sometimes
this little conjunction assumed wonderful proportions) immortality
really be ours. My heart told me we were to live, and in my higher
thoughts I could sometimes see the light that flooded those old hills
near our home, reaching far on to where all those of our household were
waiting. I never at these times could think of our beloved friends, my
blessed grandmother, of whom we did not even possess a daguerreotype, as
an angelic and unearthly something with wings, but rather as a real
being, whose face I should recognize, whose hands should touch my own,
while her lips would move, and in her dear old way she would say "Come
in, Emily," just as she used to when I went as a child to her door, and
looked in at her, as she lay on her bed, partly paralyzed. Her hair was
white with the cares of seventy-four winters, and her eyes filled then
with such a pleasant light. She had lived with us, this dear Grandma
Northrop, for years. Hal had always been her special charge; she called
him her boy, and up to the last month of her life mended his stockings
first; she would go to the door and watch him go for the cows, and when
he came back over the west meadows, would say with admiration:

"That boy is worth a dozen such as Ben Davis; he'll do something great
before he dies."