Luminous shadows moved
before her eyes, drifting across the gray background of her poor,
starved, work-weary life.
As his voice ceased the rosy clouds faded, and she realized again
the faded, musty little room, the calico~ covered furniture, and
looking down at her own cheap and ill-fitting dress, she saw her
ugly hands lying there. Then she cried out with a gush of tears:
"Oh, Will, I'm so old and homely now, I ain't fit to go with you
now! Oh, why couldn't we have married then?"
She was seeing herself as she was then, and so was he; but it
deepened his resolution. How beautiful she used to be! He seemed
to see her there as if she stood in perpetual sunlight, with a w~arm
sheen in her hair and dimples in her cheeks.
She saw her thin red wrists, her gaunt and knotted hands. There
was a pitiful droop in the thin pale lips, and the tears fell slowly
from her drooping lashes. He went on:
"Well, it's no use to cry over what was. We must think of what
we're going to do. Don't worry about your looks; you'll be the
prettiest woman in the country when we get back. Don't wait,
Aggie; make up your mind."
She hesitated, and was lost.
"What will people say?"
"I don't care what they say," he flamed out.
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