When we are happy we want
others to be happy too, we can not brook their not being so; even
transient darkness in those we love seems inimical to the light that
is burning so cheerfully in ourselves. Mavis ceased to trouble herself
with questions, and forgot that they remained unanswered.
When Dale came in she was, however, more than ordinarily sweet to him,
waiting on him, bringing the supper dishes, not sitting down until he
was served, and watching him while he ate. She told him that she had
been reading about the dog on the railway line, and that he was not to
do such things. If he ever again felt such a wild impulse, he was to
stifle it immediately by remembering his wife and bairns.
"D'you understand, Will? We won't have it--and we all three think you
ought to be ashamed of yourself for not knowing better. You're not a
boy."
"No," he said, "I shall be forty-two next year. Look here," and he
pointed to his temples. "Look at my gray hair."
"I can't see it."
"But it's there, my dear, all the same. I am beginning to turn toward
the sear and yellow leaf, as Shakespeare puts it."
She admired the easy way in which he quoted Shakespeare, as if it was
the most natural thing in the world to do.
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