"Oh, these are lovely, but why are there no more flowers?" said Bessie
thoughtlessly.
"Dorothy had given up going out then," said her grandfather in a low,
strained voice.
Bessie caught her breath as she turned the next page, and came on a
roughly washed-in mound of earth under an old wall where a white cross
was set. A sudden mist clouded her sight, and then a tear fell on the
paper.
"That is where she was buried--at Bellagio on Lake Como," said Mr.
Fairfax, and moved away.
Bessie continued to gaze at the closing page for several minutes without
seeing it; then she turned back the leaves preceding, and read them
again, as it were, in the sad light of the end. It was half a feint to
hide or overcome her emotion, for her imagination had figured to her
that last mournful journey. Her grandfather saw how she was
affected--saw the trembling of her hand as she paused upon the sketches
and the furtive winking away of her tears. Dear Bessie! smiles and tears
were so easy to her yet. If she had dared to yield to a natural impulse,
she would have shut the melancholy record and have run to comfort
him--would have clasped her hands round his arm and laid her cheek
against his shoulder, and have said, "Oh, poor grandpapa!" with most
genuine pity and sympathy. But he stood upon the hearth with his back to
the fire, erect, stiff as a ramrod, with gloom in his eyes and lips
compressed, and anything in the way of a caress would probably have
amazed more than it would have flattered him.
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