Drive home," she said to the
driver. "If any one motions to stop, pay no attention. Drive
fast."
Mrs. Osborn watched the carriage out of sight and then walked
slowly back to her work. She folded the soft white fabric over the
cushions and then laid her cheek against it and gave it its first
christening--the christening of tears.
IX
The court-house clock in the centre of the town clanged the hour of
ten--hammered it out lavishly and cheerily as a lusty blacksmith
strikes with prodigal arm his customary anvil. Another clock in a
dignified church tower also struck ten, but with far greater
solemnity, as though reminding the town clock that time is not to
be measured out to man as a mere matter of business, but intoned
savingly and warningly as the chief commodity of salvation. Then
another clock: in a more attenuated cobwebbed steeple also struck
ten, reaffirming the gloomy view of its resounding brother and
insisting that the town clock had treated the subject with sinful
levity.
Nevertheless the town clock seemed to have the best of the argument
on this particular day; for the sun was shining, cool, breezes were
blowing, and the streets were thronged with people intent on making
bargains. Possibly the most appalling idea in most men's notions
of eternity is the dread that there will be no more bargaining
there.
A bird's-eye view of the little town as it lay outspread on its
high fertile plateau, surrounded by green woods and waving fields,
would have revealed near one edge of it a large verdurous spot
which looked like an overrun oasis.
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