The little one is a week old to-day. It is very sweet to see mother and son together. I could sit and look at them by the hour. But “Life is real, life is earnest!” as the great author of that incomparable “Psalm of Life” says; and all the more that the boy has come upon the scene, I must be “up and doing, with a heart for any fate!”
Any fate! what fate can I fear, with those two precious ones to love and work for?
July —.
Can I, this wretched, hopeless wreck, groping in a thick darkness, where not the faintest gleam of hope tells me what I am, where I am, how I am to bear my life—can I be the fool who wrote that last entry?
Fool, fool! I boasted of a to-morrow. If ever any eyes see this—man or woman,—I solemnly warn you, never, NEVER, whatever happens, however you may have been blessed, look upon to-morrow with anything approaching to the feeling (was it confidence or presumption?) with which I wrote those last words.
It was all sunshine that day; next day the storm was down upon me with a vengeance.
My darling was lying on the sofa (it was a sultry afternoon) by the window. We were looking over a map together, discussing where we should all go for change of air as soon as she might travel, when suddenly she asked me “if I would mind shutting the window.”
“I think the wind must have changed,” she said, pulling her little shawl together over her shoulders; “I feel quite cold.”
She could not possibly have had a chill; the air itself was like that which comes from a heated oven. However, I closed the window. I had hardly done so when she was seized with shivering.
I called Nurse, who is a kind, but highly-experienced woman. I called her in fear. I saw her look swiftly at Lilia, then at me.