“Only because–because–it was just a memory. When I came away she
was singing, ‘Loch Lomond.’ The pathos of it! It always moves
me so when she sings that.”
“And me, too. How heartbreakingly beautiful it is when some youthful
sorrow is brooding in her breast and she sings it for the mystic
healing it brings. . . . Aunt Hannah?”
“Dear Margaret?”
“I am very ill. Sometimes it comes over me that I shall never hear
that dear voice again.”
“Oh, don’t–don’t, Margaret! I can’t bear it!”
Margaret was moved and distressed, and said, gently:
“There–there–let me put my arms around you.
Don’t cry. There–put your cheek to mine. Be comforted.
I wish to live. I will live if I can. Ah, what could she
do without me! . . . Does she often speak of me?–but I know she does.”
“Oh, all the time–all the time!”
“My sweet child! She wrote the note the moment she came home?”
“Yes–the first moment. She would not wait to take off her things.”
“I knew it. It is her dear, impulsive, affectionate way. I knew it
without asking, but I wanted to hear you say it. The petted wife
knows she is loved, but she makes her husband tell her so every day,
just for the joy of hearing it. . . . She used the pen this time.
That is better; the pencil-marks could rub out, and I should grieve
for that. Did you suggest that she use the pen?”
“Y–no–she–it was her own idea.
The mother looked her pleasure, and said:
“I was hoping you would say that. There was never such a dear
and thoughtful child! . . . Aunt Hannah?”
“Dear Margaret?”
“Go and tell her I think of her all the time, and worship her.
Why–you are crying again. Don’t be so worried about me, dear;
I think there is nothing to fear, yet.”
The grieving messenger carried her message, and piously delivered
it to unheeding ears. The girl babbled on unaware; looking up
at her with wondering and startled eyes flaming with fever,
eyes in which was no light of recognition:
“Are you–no, you are not my mother. I want her–oh, I want her!
She was here a minute ago–I did not see her go. Will she come? will
she come quickly? will she come now? . . . There are so many houses
. . . and they oppress me so . . . and everything whirls and turns
and whirls . . . oh, my head, my head!”–and so she wandered on
and on, in her pain, flitting from one torturing fancy to another,
and tossing her arms about in a weary and ceaseless persecution
of unrest.
Poor old Hannah wetted the parched lips and softly stroked the
hot brow, murmuring endearing and pitying words, and thanking
the Father of all that the mother was happy and did not know.
CHAPTER VI
Daily the child sank lower and steadily lower towards the grave,
and daily the sorrowing old watchers carried gilded tidings of her
radiant health and loveliness to the happy mother, whose pilgrimage
was also now nearing its end. And daily they forged loving and cheery
notes in the child’s hand, and stood by with remorseful consciences
and bleeding hearts, and wept to see the grateful mother devour
them and adore them and treasure them away as things beyond price,
because of their sweet source, and sacred because her child’s hand
had touched them.
At last came that kindly friend who brings healing and peace to all.
The lights were burning low. In the solemn hush which precedes the
dawn vague figures flitted soundless along the dim hall and gathered
silent and awed in Helen’s chamber, and grouped themselves about
her bed, for a warning had gone forth, and they knew. The dying
girl lay with closed lids, and unconscious, the drapery upon her
breast faintly rising and falling as her wasting life ebbed away.
At intervals a sigh or a muffled sob broke upon the stillness.
The same haunting thought was in all minds there: the pity of
this death, the going out into the great darkness, and the mother
not here to help and hearten and bless.