Mrs. Thorne improved. She was still very weak, confined to her bed, and
the cough continued at intervals to rack her wasted frame. But there was
now no fever; she slept through the nights; she had always been so
delicate in appearance that she did not seem much more fragile now.
These at least were the assertions of her Gracias friends; her Gracias
friends were determined to believe that time and good nursing would
restore her. The nursing they attended to themselves, and with devoted
care, one succeeding the other day after day. Mrs. Thorne appreciated
their good offices; but she no longer concealed her preference for the
companionship, whenever it was to be obtained, of Margaret Harold.
"I have pretended so long!" she said to Margaret, when they were alone
together. "I am so tired of pretending! and with you I can be myself. It
isn't really necessary now to be any one else--now that I shall so soon
have to go; but I have got into such a habit of it with the others that
I shouldn't know how to stop. With you I can talk freely, and you are
the only one."
"So long as it doesn't tire you," Margaret answered.
"It tires me a great deal more to be silent," responded Mrs. Thorne.
Often, therefore, when Margaret came down to East Angels, Mrs. Thorne
would send Garda into the open air to stroll about, or rest under the
rose-tree, and then, while Madam Ruiz, or Mrs. Carew, or whoever
happened to be in attendance, was sleeping to make up for the broken
rest of the coming night, she would talk to her northern friend, talk
with an openness which was in itself a sign that the many cautions of a
peculiarly cautious life were drawing to a close. One reason for this
freedom was that in spite of the apparent improvement, there were no
illusions between these two regarding the hoped-for recovery. "We are
northerners, Margaret, and _we_ know," Mrs. Thorne had said one day,
when Margaret had raised her so that she could cough with less
difficulty. "Consumption--_our_ kind--these southerners cannot grasp!"
She did not wish to die, poor woman; she clung to life with desperation;
nevertheless, she found a momentary satisfaction in a community of
feeling with Margaret over this southern lack.
"Oh, these southern lacks--how Garda would have been part of them!" she
went on. "If I had had to leave her here, if you had not promised to
take her, how inevitably she would have been sunk in them, lost in them!
she would never have got out. Oh! I so hate and loathe it all--the idle,
unrealizing, contented life of this tiresome, idle coast. They amounted
to something once, perhaps; but their day is over, and will never come
back. They don't know it; you couldn't make them believe it even if you
should try. That is what makes you rage--they're so completely mistaken
and so completely satisfied! Every idea they have is directly contrary
to all the principles of the government under which they exist But what
is that to them? They think themselves superior to the government. I'm
not exaggerating, it's really true; I can speak from experience after my
life with that"--she paused, then chose her word clearly--"with that
devilish Old Madam!"
It seemed to Margaret as if this poor exile were imbibing a few last
draughts of vitality from the satisfaction which even this late
expression of her real belief gave her; she had been silent so long!
Her Thorne and Duero envelope was dropping from her more and more. "Oh
yes, I have stood up for them," she said, another time. "Oh yes, I have
boasted of them, I knew how! I knew how better than any of them; I made
a study of it. The first Spaniards were blue-blooded knights and
gentlemen, of course; _they_ never worked with their hands. But the
Puritans were blacksmiths and ploughmen and wood-choppers--anything and
everything; I knew how to bring this all out--make a picture of it.
'Think what their _hands_ must have been!' I used to say" (and here her
weak voice took on for a moment its old crispness of
enunciation)--"'what great coarse red things, with stiff, stubby
fingers, gashed by the axe, hardened by digging, roughened and cracked
by the cold. Estimable men they were, no doubt; heroic--as much as you
like. But _gentlemen_ they were not.' I have said it hundreds of times.
For those idle, tiresome, wicked old Dueros, Margaret (the English
Thornes too, for that matter), were Garda's ancestors, and the right to
talk about them was the only thing the poor child had inherited;
naturally I made the most of it. They were the feature of this
neighborhood, of course--those Spaniards, I knew that; I had imagination
enough to appreciate it far more, I think, than the very people who were
born here. I made everything of it, this feature; I learned the history
and all the beliefs and ideas. I always hoped to get hold of some
northerners to whom I could tell it, tell it in such a way that it would
be of use to us, make a background for Garda some time. That's all
ended; I have never had the proper chance, and now of course never
shall. But at least I can tell _you_, Margaret, now that it is all over,
that in my heart I have always hated the whole thing--that in my heart I
have always ranked the lowest Puritan far, far above the very finest
Spaniard they could muster. They didn't work with their hands, these
knights and gentlemen; and why? Because they caught the poor Indians and
made them work for them; because they imported Human Flesh, they dealt
in negro slaves!" It was startling to see the faded blue eyes send forth
such a flash, a flash of the old abolitionist fire, which for a moment
made them young and brilliant again.
Margaret tried to soothe her. "It is nothing," said Mrs. Thorne, smiling
faintly and relapsing into quiet.
But the next day Melissa Whiting blazed forth anew. "I detest every
vestige of those old ideas of theirs; I hate the pride and shiftlessness
of all this land. I am attached to our friends here, of course; they
have always been kind to me. But--it is written! They will go down,
down, they and all who are like unto them; already they belong to the
Past. Their country here will be opened up, improved; but not by them.
It will be made modern, made rich under their very eyes; but not by
them. It will be filled with new people, new life; but they will get no
benefit from it, their faces will always be turned the other way. They
will dwindle in numbers, but they will not change; generations must
pass before the old leaven will be worn out. _Could_ I leave Garda to
that? Could I die, knowing that she would live over there on Patricio,
on that forlorn Ruiz plantation, or down the river in that tumble-down
house of the Girons--that Manuel with his insufferable airs, or that
wooden Torres with his ridiculous pride, would be all she should ever
know of life and happiness--my beautiful, beautiful child? I could not,
Margaret; I could not." Her eyes were wet.
"But she is not to be left to them," said Margaret.
"No; you have saved me from that," responded the mother, gratefully. She
put out her hand and took Margaret's for a moment; then relinquished it.
The brief clasp would have seemed cold to their southern friends; but it
expressed all that was necessary between these two northerners.
Another day the sick woman resumed her retrospect, she spoke of her
early life. "I was a poor school-teacher, you know; I had no near
relatives, no home, I was considered to have made a wonderful match when
I married as I did. Everybody was astonished at my good luck--perfectly
astonished; they couldn't comprehend how it had happened. When they
knew, in New Bristol, that I was to marry Mr. Edgar Thorne, of Florida;
that I was to be taken down to an old Spanish plantation which had been
in his family for generations; that I was to live there in luxury, and
'a tropical climate'--they all came to see me again, to look at me; they
seemed to think that I must have changed in some way, that I couldn't be
the same Melissa Whiting who had taught their district school. At New
Bristol the snow in the winter is four feet deep. At New Bristol
everybody is busy, and everybody is poor. But I was to live among
palm-trees in a place called Gracias-a-Dios; I was to go down by sea;
roses bloomed there at Christmas-time, and oranges were to be had for
the asking. Gracias-a-Dios _is_ very far from New Bristol, Margaret,"
said Melissa Whiting, pausing. "It's all the distance between a real
place and an ideal one. I know how far that is!"
She was silent for some minutes; then she went on. "My elevation--for it
seemed that at New Bristol--was like a fairy story; I presume they are
telling it still. But if I hadn't you behind me, Margaret, I would put
Garda back there in all the snow, I would put her back in my old red
school-house on the hill (only she wouldn't know how to teach, poor
child!)--I would do it in a moment, I say, if I had the power, rather
than leave her here among the 'roses,' the 'oranges,' and the 'palms.'"
(Impossible to give the accent with which she pronounced these words.)
"I don't say my husband wasn't kind to me; he was very kind; but--the
Old Madam was here! He only lived a short time; and then, more than
ever, the Old Madam was here! Well, I did the best I could--you must
give me that credit: there was Garda to think of, and I had no other
home. It's so unfortunate to be poor, Margaret--have you ever thought of
it?--unfortunate, I mean, for the disposition. So many people could be
as amiable and agreeable and yielding as any one, if they only had a
little more money--just a little more! I could have been, I know. But
how could I be yielding when I had everything on my hands? Oh! you have
no idea how I have worked! We had no income to live upon, Garda and I,
there hasn't been any for a long time; we have had the house and
furniture, the land, Pablo and Raquel,--that's all. We have lived on the
things that we had, the things that came off the place, with what Pablo
has been able to shoot, and the fish and oysters from the creeks and
lagoon. The few supplies which one is obliged to buy, such as tea and
coffee, I have got by selling our oranges; I have taken enormous pains
with the oranges on that account. The same way with Garda's shoes and
gloves; I couldn't make shoes and gloves, though I confess I did try.
Then, if any one broke a pane of glass, that took money; and there were
a few other little things. But, with these exceptions, I have tried to
do everything myself, and manage without spending. I have kept all the
furniture in repair; I have painted and varnished and cleaned with my
own hands; I learned to mend the crockery and even the tins. I have made
almost everything that Garda and I have worn, of course; I braid the
palmetto hats we both wear; I have dyed and patched and turned and
darned--oh! you haven't a conception! Some of the table-cloths are
nothing _but_ darns. I could put in myself the new panes of glass, after
they were once bought. And, every month or two, I have had to mend the
roof, to keep it from leaking; generally I did that at sunrise, but I
have done it, too, on moonlight nights, late, when no one was likely to
come. Then, every single day, I have had to begin all over again with
Pablo and Raquel. Three times every week I have had to go out myself and
stand over Pablo to see that he did as I wished about the orange-trees.
Always the very same things; but we have been at it in this way for
years! Every day of my life I have had to go out and see with my own
eyes whether Raquel had wiped off the shelves; three hundred and
sixty-five times each year, for seventeen years, she has pretended to
forget it."
She lay silent, as if reviewing it all. "Perhaps I have been
over-thorough," she resumed. "But somehow I couldn't help it,
thoroughness has always been my mania. It has taken me to great
lengths--I see it now; it has made burdens where there needn't have been
any. Still, I couldn't have helped it, Margaret; I really don't think I
could. After sweeping, I always used to go down on my hands and knees
and dust the carpets with a cloth. And I used to pick up every seed that
Dick, my canary, had dropped. Dear little Dick, how I cried when he
died!--he was the last northern thing I had left; yet, would you believe
it? I pretended I didn't care for him, that I was tired of his singing.
I pretended I preferred the mocking-birds. Mocking-birds!" repeated
Melissa Whiting, with whispered but scathing contempt.
She came back to the subject of her thoroughness when Margaret paid her
next visit. "It has been a hard task-master; I have been thinking it
over," she said. "Still, without it, should I have got on as well even
as I have? I don't believe I should. Take the way I have made myself
over--made myself a Thorne. I couldn't have lived here at all as I was,
there was no room for Melissa Whiting. I saw that; and so, while I was
about it, I made the change complete. Oh yes, I was very complete! I
swallowed everything. I even swallowed slavery,--I, a New England
girl,--what do you say to that?--a New England girl, abolitionist to the
core! It was the most heroic thing I ever did in my life. Very likely
you don't think so, but it was. For, never for one instant were my real
feelings altered, my real beliefs changed--I couldn't have changed them
if I had tried. And I could have died for them at any moment, if I had
been called upon to do so, though I _was_ playing such a part. But I
wasn't called upon, and so I made them stay down; I covered every inch
of myself with a southern skin. But if any one thinks that it was easy
or pleasant, let him try it--that's all!"
"When the war began," she went on, "I remember how much more clearly
reasoned out were _my_ views of the southern side of the question than
were those of the southerners themselves about here. They were as warm
as possible in their feelings, of course, but they hadn't studied the
subject as I had, got their reasons into shape; so it ended in their
borrowing my reasons! But every night through all that time, Margaret,
on my knees I prayed for my own people, and I used to read the accounts
of the northern victories--when I could get them--with an inward shout;
never once, never once, had I a doubt of the final success."
"It's a curious story, isn't it?" Margaret said to Winthrop, when she
repeated to him some of these confidences. "She wished me to tell you,
she asked me to do so; she said she should like to have _you_ understand
her life."
"Does she expect me to admire it?" said Winthrop, rather surprised
himself to feel how quickly the old heat could rise in his throat again
when confronted with a tale like this. For the southern women, who had
everywhere suffered so much, given so much, and lost their all, he had
nothing but the tenderest pity. But a northern woman who had joined
their cause--that seemed to him apostasy. That the apostasy had been but
pretence only made it worse.
"She expects you to remember her motive for it, after she is gone,"
Margaret answered.
"Her motive can't make me like it. Even in the midst of her mistakes,
however, she has been a wonderful little creature. But you say 'after
she is gone'--do you think her worse, then? I thought she was so much
better."
"So she is better. But she will fail again; at least that is what she
thinks herself, and I cannot help fearing she is right."
"I am very sorry to hear it." He seemed to have the idea that she would
say more; and he waited. But she did not speak.
"I suppose, then, you have had some further talk about Garda?" he said
at last, breaking the pause.
"Yes."
"You would rather not tell me?"
"I will tell you later."
At this moment Mrs. Rutherford came into the room. But her nephew
remained silent so long, his eyes resting absently on Margaret's dusky
hair as she bent her head over a long seam (she seemed to like long
seams!), that at last the aunt asked him if he knew that he was growing
absent-minded.
"Absent-minded--impossible! No one has ever accused me of that before. I
have always been too present-minded; viciously so, they say."
"People change," remarked Mrs. Rutherford, with dignity. "There have
been many changes here lately."
Her voice had an undertone that suggested displeasure; the lady was
indeed in the fixed condition of finding nothing right. The state
appeared to have been caused by the absences of her niece at East
Angels. The household wheels had apparently moved on with their usual
smoothness during that interval; Mrs. Rutherford herself had appeared to
be in the enjoyment of her usual agreeably weak health; her attire had
been as becoming as ever, her hair as artistically arranged. But in
spite of all this there was the undertone. Nothing was as it should
be--that might have been the general summing up. If she leaned back in
her chair, that was not comfortable; if she sat erect, that was not
comfortable either; there were draughts everywhere, it was
insupportable--the draughts; the floors were cold; they were always
cold. She was convinced that the climate was damp; it must be, "with all
this water" about. Then, again, she was sure that it was "feverish;" it
must be, "with all this sand." The eyrie had become "tiresome," the
fragrance of the orange flowers "enervating;" as for pine barrens, she
never wished to see a pine barren again.
These things were not peevishly said, Mrs. Rutherford's well-modulated
voice was never peevish; they were said with a sort of majestic
coldness by a majestic woman who was, however, above complaints. She was
as handsome as ever; but it was curious to note how her inward
dissatisfactions had deepened lines which before had been scarcely
visible, had caused her fine profile to assume for the first time a
little of that expression to which regular profiles, cut on the majestic
scale, are liable as age creeps on--a certain hard, immovable
appearance, as though the features had been cut out of wood, as though
the changing feelings, whatever they might be, would not be able to
affect their rigid line.
"She's missed you uncommon," Celestine confided to Margaret, when she
returned; "_nothin's_ ben right. 'Most every mornin' when she was all
dressed I sez to her, 'Mrs. Rutherford,' sez I, 'what's the preposition
for now?' And there never warn't any preposition, or, ruther, there was
so many we couldn't begin to manage 'em! Mr. Evert--he's ben down to the
Thornes' a good deal, you know, an' Dr. Kirby--_he_ hasn't ben in at
all. Even Mrs. Carew's ben gone. An' so she's rather petered out. Glad
you're back, Miss Margaret; dear me suz! yes. A person needn't be a
murderer to make a house almighty uncomfortable by just sheer
grumpiness. But she'll pick up now."
Celestine had been right when she said that the lady's mental condition
would improve now that her niece had returned. Gradually, as Margaret's
touch on the helm brought the household back into the atmosphere she
loved, the atmosphere of few questions and no suggestions, suggestions
as to what she had "better" do (Mrs. Rutherford hated suggestions as to
what she had "better" do), of all her small customs silently furthered,
her little wishes remembered without the trouble of having to express
them, her remarks listened to and answered, and conversation (when she
wished for conversation) kept up--all this so quietly done that she
could with ease ignore that it was anything especial to do, maintain the
position that it was but the usual way of living, that anything else
would have been unusual--gradually, as this congenial atmosphere
re-established itself, Mrs. Rutherford recovered her geniality, that
geniality which had been so much admired. Her majestic remarks as to the
faults of Gracias and everything in Gracias became fewer, the
under-note of cold displeasure in her voice died away; her profile grew
flexible and personal again, it was less like that of a Roman matron in
a triumphal procession--a procession which has been through a good deal
of wind and dust.
This happy revival of placidity at the eyrie (to which possibly the
reappearance of Dr. Kirby had added something) was sharply broken one
morning by bad news from East Angels. Mrs. Thorne was worse--"sinking"
was the term used in the note which Betty Carew had hastily scribbled;
she was anxious to see Mrs. Harold.
It had come, then, the end, and much sooner than even she herself had
expected. She had suffered severely for twenty-four hours; the suffering
was over now, but she had not the strength to rally.
"It's because she's always worked _so_ hard--I can't help thinking of
it," said Betty, who sat in the outer room, crying (she had been up all
night, but did not dream of taking any rest); "she _never_ stopped. We
all knew it, and yet somehow we didn't half realize it, or try to
prevent it; and it's too late now."
All the Gracias friends were soon assembled at East Angels; even Mrs.
Moore, invalid though she was, made the little journey by water, and was
carried up to the house in an arm-chair by her husband and old Pablo.
Recovering, if not more strength, then at least that renewed command of
speech which often comes back for a time just before the end, Mrs.
Thorne, late in the afternoon, opened her eyes, looked at them all, and
then, after a moment, asked to be left alone with Garda, Margaret, and
Evert Winthrop. Margaret thought that she had spoken Winthrop's name by
mistake.
"She doesn't mean you, I think," she said to him, in a low tone.
"Yes, I mean Mr. Winthrop," murmured Mrs. Thorne, with a faint shadow of
her old decision.
Her Gracias friends softly left the room. Even Dr. Kirby, after a few
whispered words with Winthrop, followed them.
When the door was closed, Mrs. Thorne signified that she wished to take
Margaret's hand. Then, her feeble fingers resting on it, "Garda," she
said, in her husky voice, "Margaret--whom I trust entirely--has
promised--to take charge of you--for a while--after--I am gone. Promise
me--on your side--to obey her--to do as she wishes."
"Do not make her promise that," said Margaret. "I think she loves me;
that will be enough."
Garda, crying bitterly, kissed Margaret, and then sank on her knees
beside the bed, her head against her mother's arm. The sight of her
child's grief did not bring the tears to Mrs. Thorne's eyes--already the
calm that precedes death had taken possession of them; but it did cause
a struggling effort of the poor harassed breath to give forth a sob. She
tried to stroke Garda's hair, but could not. "How can I go--and leave
her?" she whispered, looking piteously at Margaret, and then at
Winthrop, as he stood at the foot of the bed. "She had--no one--but me."
And again came the painful sound in the throat, though the clogged
breast had not the strength to rise.
"If I could only know," she went on, desolately, to Margaret, the slow
turning of the eyes betraying the approach of that lethargy which was
soon to touch the muscles with numbness. "You have said--for a while;
but you did not promise for longer. If I could only know, Margaret, that
she would be under your care as long as she is so alone in the world,
then, perhaps, it would be easier to die."
These words, pronounced with difficulty one by one, separated by the
slow breaths, seemed to Winthrop indescribably affecting. It was the
last earthly effort of mother-love.
Margaret hesitated. It was only for a moment that she was silent. But
Evert took that moment to come forward, he came to the side of the bed
where she was standing. "Give _me_ your permission, Mrs. Thorne," he
said to the dying woman. "Trust _me_, and I will fill the trust. Garda
shall have every care, my aunt shall take charge of her." He was
indignant with Margaret for hesitating.
But Margaret hesitated no longer. "I think I am the better person," she
interposed, gently. Then, bending forward, she said, with distinctness,
"Mrs. Thorne, Garda shall live with me, or near me under my charge, as
long as she is so young and alone, as long as she needs my care. You
have given me a great trust, I hereby accept it; and I will keep it
with all the faithfulness I can." Her voice took on an almost solemn
tone as the last words were spoken.
Winthrop, glancing at her as she bent forward beside him, perceived that
though she was holding herself in strict control, she was moved by some
deep emotion; he could feel that she was trembling. Again, even then and
there, he gave an instant to the same conjecture which had occupied his
thoughts before. Why should she show emotion? why should her voice take
on that tone? She was not excitable; he had had occasion to know that
she was not afraid of death, she had stood beside too many death-beds in
her visits among the poor (not that he admired her philanthropy); it
could not be that she had suddenly become so fond of poor Mrs. Thorne.
But he left his conjectures unsolved. A faint but beautiful smile was
passing strangely over the mother's face, strangely, because no feature
stirred or changed--she was beyond that--and yet the smile was there;
the eyes became so transfigured that the two who were watching stood
awe-struck; for it seemed as if she were beholding something, just
behind or above them, which was invisible to them, something which had
lifted from her all the pains and cares of her earthly life, and set her
free. For some moments longer the beautiful radiance shone there. Then
the light departed, and death alone was left, though the eyes retained a
consciousness. They seemed to try to turn to Garda, who was still
kneeling with her head hidden against her mother's shoulder.
"Take her in your arms, Garda," whispered Margaret; "your face is the
last she wishes to see."
Winthrop had summoned Dr. Kirby; the other friends came softly in. For
twenty minutes more the slow breaths came and went, but with longer and
longer intervals between. Garda, lying beside her mother, held her in
her arms, and the dying woman's fixed eyes rested on her child's for
some time; then consciousness faded, the lids drooped. Garda put her
warm cheek against the small white face, and, thus embraced, the
mother's earthly life ebbed away, while in the still room ascended, in
the voice of the clergyman, the last prayer--"O Almighty God, with whom
do live the spirits of men after they are delivered from their earthly
prisons, we humbly commend to Thee the soul of this thy servant, our
dear sister--" Our dear sister; they were all there, her Gracias
friends--Mrs. Kirby, Mrs. Carew, Mrs. Moore, Madam Giron, Madam
Ruiz--and they all wept for her as though she had been a sister indeed.
In the hall outside, at the open door, stood handsome Manuel, not
ashamed of his tears; and near him, more devout as well as more
self-controlled, knelt Torres, reverently waiting, with head turned
away, for the end.
Dr. Kirby laid the little hand he had been holding, down upon the
coverlet. "She has gone," he said, in a low voice. And, with a visible
effort to control his features, he passed round to the other side of the
bed, and lifting Garda tenderly, tried to draw her away. But Garda clung
to the dead, and cried so heart-brokenly that all the women, with fresh
tears starting at the desolate sound--that sound of audible sobbing
which first tells those outside the still room that the blow has
fallen--all the women came one by one and tried to comfort her. But it
was not until Margaret Harold took her in her arms that she was at all
quieted.
"Come with me, Garda," she said. "You are not leaving your mother alone,
your mother is not here; she has gone home to God. Come with me;
remember she wished it." And Garda yielded.
They buried Mrs. Thorne in the family burying-ground at East Angels (the
one of which she had spoken), her daughter and her friends following, on
foot, the coffin, borne on the shoulders of eight of their former
slaves. Thus the little procession crossed the Levels to the secluded
enclosure at the far end, Mr. Moore in his surplice leading the way. A
high hedge of cedar-trees set closely together like a wall, their dark
branches sweeping the ground, encircled the place; across the narrow
opening which had been left for entrance, was a low paling-gate. Within,
ranged in a circle, were a number of oblong coquina tombs, broad and
low, without inscriptions; here slept all the Dueros, the first
Englishman, Edgar Thorne, and the few American-born Thornes who had
succeeded him. Into the presence of this company was now borne Melissa
Whiting.
Her coffin was covered with the beautiful flowers of the South; but
within, hidden on her breast, there was a faded spray of arbutus, the
last "May-flowers" which had been sent to her, years before, from her
northern home; she had given them to Margaret, and asked her, when the
time came, to place them there. Thus was she lowered to her rest. All
who were present came one by one, according to Gracias custom, to cast
into the deep grave the handful of white sand which, in Florida,
represents the "earth to earth"--that sound which, soft though it be,
breaks the heart. Garda, shivering, clung to Margaret and hid her face.
Then rose Mr. Moore's voice among them: "I heard a voice from heaven
saying unto me, 'Write. From henceforth blessed are the dead--for they
rest from their labors.'"
Beautiful words, unmeaning to the young and happy, more and more do they
convey to many of us a dear comfort, for ourselves as well as for those
already gone--blessed are the dead, for they rest from their labors. For
they _rest_.
That evening the negroes of the neighborhood assembled at East Angels,
and, standing outside in the darkness, under the windows, sang their own
funeral hymn; their voices rose with sweetness in the wildly plaintive
minor strains; then grew softer and softer, as, still singing sweetly,
they marched quietly away.
And so night closed down over the old southern house. But the little
mother, who had toiled there so long, was gone. She was away in that far
country where we hope we shall no more remember the cares and pain, the
mysteries and bitter griefs of this.