Then you brought me, more dead
than alive, back to my desolate home, and taking me in your arms carried
me from the carriage to my bed. As you laid me down you said, 'My sister's
little friend, I am glad to have seen you once again. Bell tells me all
these years I have been absent you have been pleasant friends to each
other. You are dear and sweet because she loved you. I shall never see you
again perhaps, for when she dies I shall have no ties here and shall go
elsewhere. Kiss me good-bye,' and I did.
"For a year after that I was alone: then Esther Hooper came, and I was not
wretched. I have had my share of lovers and friends--what girl has
not?--have had rare treats of music, of books and paintings, and shared
their pleasant harmonies with an appreciative soul; and I have been very
contented.
"But now I am desolate again, and out of the darkness you have come and
beckoned me to follow you and stand near you all the rest of my life. It
will be happiness enough, as much as is good for me, to live with you,
even if I am nothing to you, for, oh, I love you very faithfully!"
And so, you know, they were married, with only the doctor and Mrs. Keller
to witness the ceremony; and at once, with her little decided way, the
sort of certainty that years of self-dependence give, she became his
nurse, attending to him as persistently and indefatigably as if the sole
purpose for which she had been born was that.
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