She would also not let a
rose leaf fall and waste in the garden soil, or a sprig of lavender
or thyme. She gathered them all, and stored them away in chests and
drawers and old china bowls--the whole house seemed laid away in rose
leaves and lavender. Evelina's clothes gave out at every motion that
fragrance of dead flowers which is like the fragrance of the past,
and has a sweetness like that of sweet memories. Even the cedar chest
where Evelina's mother's blue bridal array was stored had its till
heaped with rose leaves and lavender.
When Evelina was nearly seventy years old the old nurse who had lived
with her her whole life died. People wondered then what she would do.
"She can't live all alone in that great house," they said. But she
did live there alone six months, until spring, and people used to
watch her evening lamp when it was put out, and the morning smoke
from her kitchen chimney. "It ain't safe for her to be there alone in
that great house," they said.
But early in April a young girl appeared one Sunday in the old
Squire's pew. Nobody had seen her come to town, and nobody knew who
she was or where she came from, but the old people said she looked
just as Evelina Adams used to when she was young, and she must be
some relation. The old man who had used to look across the
meeting-house at Evelina, over forty years ago, looked across now at
this young girl, and gave a great start, and his face paled under his
gray beard stubble.
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