I had not seen a picture of him for twenty
years. I went over and touched it gently.
"Father, father!" I said.
Under it was the tall hall chair that I had climbed over as a child,
and had stood on many times, to see myself in the mirror above. The
chair was newly finished and looked the better for its age. I glanced
in the old glass. The chair had stood time better than I. I was a
middle-aged woman, lined with poverty and care, shabby, prematurely
gray, a little hard. I had thought my father an old man when that
picture was taken, and now I was even older. "Father!" I whispered
again, and fell to crying in the dimly lighted hall.
Lida sent for me at once. I had only time to dry my eyes and
straighten my hat. Had I met Alma on the stairs, I would have passed
her without a word. She would not have known me. But I saw no one.
Lida was in bed. She was lying there with a rose-shaded lamp beside
her, and a great bowl of spring flowers on a little stand at her
elbow. She sat up when I went in, and had a maid place a chair for me
beside the bed.
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