"That is a betrothal ring," Aunt Rachel replied.
"Ah!..." said Annabel.
Then, after a minute, she drew still closer. Her eyes were fixed on Aunt
Rachel's, and the insinuating voice was very low.
"Ah!... And did _it_ die too, lady dear?"
Again came that quick, half-affrighted look into Aunt Rachel's face. Her
eyes avoided those of the gipsy, sought them, and avoided them again.
"Did what die?" she asked slowly and guardedly....
The child at the gipsy's back did not need suck; nevertheless, Annabel's
fingers worked at her bosom, and she moved the sling. As the child
settled, Annabel gave Aunt Rachel a long look.
"Why do you rock?" she asked slowly.
Aunt Rachel was trembling. She did not reply. In a voice soft as sliding
water the gipsy continued:
"Lady dear, we are a strange folk to you, and even among us there are
those who shuffle the pack of cards and read the palm when silver has
been put upon it, knowing nothing... But some of us _see_--some of us
_see_."
It was more than a minute before Aunt Rachel spoke.
"You are a woman, and you have your babe at your breast now.... Every
woman sees the thing you speak of."
But the gipsy shook her head. "You speak of seeing with the heart. I
speak of eyes--these eyes."
Again came a long pause. Aunt Rachel had given a little start, but had
become quiet again. When at last she spoke it was in a voice scarcely
audible.
"That cannot be. I know what you mean, but it cannot be.... He died
on the eve of his wedding. For my bridal clothes they made me black
garments instead. It is long ago, and now I wear neither black nor white,
but--" her hands made a gesture. Aunt Rachel always dressed as if to suit
a sorrow that Time had deprived of bitterness, in such a tender and
fleecy grey as one sees in the mists that lie like lawn over hedgerow
and copse early of a midsummer's morning. "Therefore," she resumed, "your
heart may see, but your eyes cannot see that which never was."
But there came a sudden note of masterfulness into the gipsy's voice.
"With my eyes--_these_ eyes," she repeated, pointing to them.
Aunt Rachel kept her own eyes obstinately on her knitting needles. "None
except I have seen it. It is not to be seen," she said.
The gipsy sat suddenly erect.
"It is not so. Keep still in your chair," she ordered, "and I will tell
you when--"
It was a curious thing that followed. As if all the will went out of
her, Aunt Rachel sat very still; and presently her hands fluttered and
dropped. The gipsy sat with her own hands folded over the mat on her
knees. Several minutes passed; then, slowly, once more that sweetest of
smiles stole over Aunt Rachel's cheeks. Once more her head dropped. Her
hands moved. Noiselessly on the rockers that the gipsy had padded with
felt the chair began to rock. Annabel lifted one hand.
"_Dovo se li_" she said. "It is there."
Aunt Rachel did not appear to hear her. With that ineffable smile still
on her face, she rocked....
Then, after some minutes, there crossed her face such a look as visits
the face of one who, waking from sleep, strains his faculties to
recapture some blissful and vanishing vision....
"_Jal_--it is gone," said the gipsy woman.
Aunt Rachel opened her eyes again. She repeated dully after Annabel:
"It is gone."
"Ghosts," the gipsy whispered presently, "are of the dead. Therefore it
must have lived."