“I am awake, Maggie.”
“Yes, dear. Do not talk, you have been ill; you are getting better.”
Mary smiled. The happiest of pillows is that which Death has frowned on, and passed over. “I am really getting well?”
“You are really getting well. Sleep again.”
There was a silence that could almost be felt; and Maggie sat breathless in it. When it became too trying, she rose softly and went to the next room. There was a small table there, and on it a shaded lamp and a few books. One of them was turned with its face downward and looked unfamiliar; she lifted it, and saw on the fly-leaf, Cornelius Fleming, A.D. 1800. It was a pocket edition of the Alcestis in English, and the good man had drawn a pencil opposite some lines, which he doubtless intended Maggie to read:—
“Manifold are the changes
Which Providence may bring.
Many unhoped for things
God’s power hath brought about.
What seemeth, often happeneth not;
And for unlikely things
God findeth out a way.”
She smiled and laid the little volume down. “The tide has turned,” she thought, “and many an ill wind has driven a ship into a good harbor. I wonder what was the matter with me this morning!” And she sat quiet with a new sense of peace in her heart, until the moon was low in the west, and the far hills stood clear and garish in the cold white light of morning. Then Mary called her again. There was a look of pitiful anxiety on her face; she grasped Maggie’s hand, and whispered “The 29th? Is it come?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Your tryst, Maggie?”
“I will keep it some other time.”