"It's over a year, now, since I saw mama," Imogen was saying, as they
turned again from a long scrutiny of the crowded decks--the distance was as
yet too great for individual recognition. "She didn't come over this summer
as usual,--poor dear, how bitterly she must regret that now, though it was
hardly her fault, papa and I fixed on our Western trip for the summer. It
seems a very long time to me."
"And to me," said Jack. "It's only a year since I came really to know you;
but how much longer it seems than that."
"It's strange that we should know each other so well and yet that you have
never seen my mother," said Imogen. "Is that she? No, she is not so tall.
Poor darling, how tired and sad she must be."
"You are tired and sad, too," said Jack.
"Ah, but I am young--youth can bear so much better. And, besides, I don't
think that my sadness would ever be like mama's. You see, in a way, I have
so much more in my life. I should never sit down in my sadness and let it
overwhelm me. I should use it, always. It is strange that grief should so
often make people selfish. It ought, rather, to open doors for us and give
us wider visions."
He was so sure that it had performed these offices for her, looking, as he
now looked, at her delicate profile, turned from him while she gazed toward
the ship, that he was barely conscious of the little tremor of amusement
that went through him for the triteness of her speech.
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