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.
Helen stirred; her hands began to grope wistfully about as if they
sought something--she had been blind some hours. The end was come; all
knew it. With a great sob Hester gathered her to her breast, crying,
“Oh, my child, my darling!” A rapturous light broke in the dying girl's
face, for it was mercifully vouchsafed her to mistake those sheltering
arms for another's; and she went to her rest murmuring, “Oh, mamma, I am
so happy--I longed for you--now I can die.”
Two hours later Hester made her report. The mother asked:
“How is it with the child?”
“She is well.”