It will be done in time, and it will be a beauty."
Mrs. Comstock turned and trudged back to the Limberlost. The bitterness
in her soul became a physical actuality, which water would not wash
from her lips. She was too late! She was not needed. Another woman was
mothering her girl. Another woman would prepare a beautiful dress such
as Elnora had worn the previous night. The girl's love and gratitude
would go to her. Mrs. Comstock tried the old process of blaming some one
else, but she felt no better. She nursed her grief as closely as ever
in the long days of the girl's absence. She brooded over Elnora's
possession of the forbidden violin and her ability to play it until the
performance could not have been told from her father's. She tried every
refuge her mind could conjure, to quiet her heart and remove the fear
that the girl never would come home again, but it persisted. Mrs.
Comstock could neither eat nor sleep. She wandered around the cabin and
garden. She kept far from the pool where Robert Comstock had sunk from
sight for she felt that it would entomb her also if Elnora did not come
home Wednesday morning. The mother told herself that she would wait, but
the waiting was as bitter as anything she ever had known.
When Elnora awoke Monday another dress was in the hands of a seamstress
and was soon fitted. It had belonged to the Angel, and was a soft
white thing that with a little alteration would serve admirably for
Commencement and the ball.
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