Read it through once

When they entered the house they saw the old farmer, who had slipped in before them, sitting by his wife holding her hand, patting it in a curious old-time way, and the attitude of the old couple was so pregnant with significance that it fixed itself on Esther's mind. It seemed to her that she had never seen anything so beautiful. So they had lived for forty years, faithful to each other, and she wondered if Fred forty years hence would be sitting by her side holding her hand.