The church was as yet empty , save for a class of Sunday school children and their teacher in a remote corner , who paused midway in their lesson to stare with amazement at the astonishing sigh of Salome Marsh limping into church . The big building , shadowy from the great elms around it , was very still . A faint murmur came from the closed room behind the pulpit where the rest of the Sunday school was assembled . In front of the pulpit was a stand bearing tall white geraniums in luxuriant blossom . The light fell through the stained-glass window in a soft tangle of hues upon the floor . Salome felt a sense of peace and happiness fill her heart . Even Judith 's anger lost its importance . She leaned her head against the window-sill , and gave herself up to the flood of tender old recollections that swept over her . Memory went back to the years of her childhood when she had sat in this pew every Sunday with her mother . Judith had come then , too , always seeming grown up to Salome by reason of her ten years ' seniority . Her tall , dark , reserved father never came . Salome knew that the Carmody people called him an infidel , and looked upon him as a very wicked man . But he had not been wicked ; he had been good and kind in his own odd way . The gently little mother had died when Salome was ten years old , but so loving and tender was Judith 's care that the child did not miss anything out of her life . Judith Marsh loved her little sister with an intensity that was maternal . She herself was a plain , repellent girl , liked by few , sought after by no man ; but she was determined that Salome should have everything that she had missed -- admiration , friendship , love . She would have a vicarious youth in Salome 's . All went according to Judith 's planning until Salome was eighteen , and then trouble after trouble came . Their father , whom Judith had understood and passionately loved , died ; Salome 's young lover was killed in a railroad accident ; and finally Salome herself developed symptoms of the hip-disease which , springing from a trifling injury , eventually left her a cripple . Everything possible was done for her .
Judith , falling heir to a snug little fortune by the death of the old aunt for whom she was named , spared nothing XXXXX obtain the best medical skill , and in vain .
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