She spoke now of that past in her letter. "Do you remember last Thanksgiving Day? Mother and I went to church, and you were there, and you walked home with us."
Yes, he remembered. How proud he had been of Hildegarde's girlish beauty, of her mother's light carriage and free step! The weather had been almost spring-like, and they had loitered, stopping at last at the cemetery where Elizabeth was so soon to sleep.
Thinking of it now, it seemed to Crispin incredible that all that was left of that quick and burning spirit which had been Elizabeth Musgrove should lie sleeping in that quiet place. She had seemed to him always such an amazing and splendid person. Whether he had found her digging in the garden or tending her stock, there had been an air of detachment from toil, as if the thing she did was not a task, but an achievement.
That had been the charm of Elizabeth for him. She had set her own standards. She had wrested from what would have seemed to some women intolerable conditions a measure of contentment. If there had been a cry in her heart for what she had lost, there had been a song on her lips for what she had found—a brave woman and a royal one.
Early that morning Crispin had gone to the cemetery to lay a wreath for Hildegarde on her mother's grave. He had added for himself a little chaplet of laurel tied with gold. He had felt that the woman who lay there deserved a crown.
And she had passed her courage on to her daughter.
