He would die in that far-off country, with no one to care for him
or nurse him except his unhappy wife. She could not bear to think of it.
She must go with them.
But how could she ever bear to quit Upton? All her own people were
buried in the churchyard there, and she kept their graves green with
turf, and their headstones free from moss. She had no memories or
associations anywhere else, and she clung to all such memories and
cherished them fondly. There was no one in Upton who knew the pedigrees
of every family as she did. Even her household goods, old and quaint as
they were, had a halo from the light of other days about them. How many
persons, dead and gone now, had she seen sit opposite to her in that old
arm-chair! How often had childish faces looked laughingly at themselves
in her pewter plates? Her mother's chairs and sofa, worked in
tent-stitch, which only saw the daylight twice a year--what would become
of them, and what common uses would they be put to in any other house?
Her heart failed her when she thought of leaving these things. It was
not, moreover, simply leaving them, as she would have to do when she
died, but she must see them sold and scattered before her eyes, and
behold the vacant places empty and forlorn, without their old
belongings.
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