CHAPTER II
"THE LOOK"--RUBENS--MRS. BUNDLE AGAIN
My widowed father and I were both terribly lonely. The depths of his
loss in the lovely and lovable wife who had been his constant
companion for nearly six years I could not fathom at the time. For my
own part, I was quite as miserable as I have ever been since, and I
doubt if I shall ever feel such overwhelming desolation again, unless
the same sorrow befalls me as then befell him.
I "fretted"--as the servants expressed it--to such an extent as to
affect my health; and I fancy it was because my father's attention was
called to the fact that I was fast fading after the mother and sister
whose death (and my own loneliness) I bewailed, that he roused himself
from his own grief to comfort mine. Once more I was "dressed" after
tea. Of late my bony nurse had not thought it necessary to go through
this ceremony, and I had crept about in the same crape-covered frock
from breakfast to bedtime.
Now I came down to dessert again, and though I think the empty place
at the end of the table gave my father a fresh shock when I took my
old post by him, yet I fancy the lonely evening was less lonely for my
presence.
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