His own illness
and his daughter's marriage had almost brought the furnishing of the new
house to a stand-still, while the anxiety of the purchasers of the old
place to get their foundations in before the real cold weather had made
it impossible for the family to re-remain a single day beyond the
stipulated term. No new furnishings had been attempted beyond carpets and
curtains, and for the first few days that the old man lay in these new
quarters he had little to assure him that he was not in some hotel or in
some hospital, save the echoing tread of the hard-finishers in other
rooms about him. The first slight flurry of snow dusted the dead weeds of
the open spaces round the house, and the reflections from it passed
through the clear, broad panes of the windows to strike a grimmer chill
from the shimmering surfaces of ash and oak. Never before had the world
seemed to him so empty and so cold and so unsympathetic. And when his
own wife had said to him, in accents almost of reproach, "Oh, David,
David, how could you take such a time as this to be sick, with all the
worry of moving and furnishing and Rosy's wedding and everything else?"
he felt as bare and chill and numb as a naked sailor cast ashore on some
alien and inhospitable coast.
Susan Bates appeared at the new house almost immediately; she felt its
need now, if ever, of being habitable. She stuffed her carriage with rugs
and draperies; she sent an expressman out with her favorite easy-chair.
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