Mothers with griefs like
hers must suffer in the fetters of silence.
When dinner was over, Ito made his nightly pilgrimage through the house,
opening bedroom shutters, fastening curtains back. He drew up the
piazza-blinds, and like a stage-scene, framed in post and balustrade, and
bordered with a tracery of rose-vines, the valley burst upon the view.
Its cool twilight colors, its river-bed of mist, added to the depth of
distance. Against it the white roses looked whiter, and the pink ones
caught fire from the intense, great afterglow.
The silent couple, drinking their coffee outside, drew a long mutual sigh.
"Every day," said Mrs. Thorne, "we wonder why we stay in such a place, and
every evening we are cajoled into thinking there never can be such
another day. And the beauty is just as fresh every night as the heat is
preposterous by day."
"It's a great strain on the men," said Mr. Thorne. "We lost two of our best
hands this week--threw down their tools and quit, for some tomfoolery they
wouldn't have noticed a month ago. The bosses irritate the men, and the
men get fighting mad in a minute. Not one of them will bear the weight of
a word, and I don't blame them.
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