“Keep my name, Catharine, till your husband comes back and gives you his own. It pleases me to think that it does not quite die out with me. Now go down, darling. The good people will want you, and I would like to rest a little.”
Catharine arose with a heavy heart, and went down-stairs. The inmates of the dancing-room were all in gay commotion. Elsie was at the piano, inspired with her own music. They did not need Catharine, so she went up to her own room, and, kneeling by the bed, wept and prayed for that dear life with passionate earnestness. Never until now had she known how clear and good this woman had been to her; how nobly she had influenced a life threatened from the first with disaster. She felt in all her being a dread of the loneliness which would fall upon her when that gentle guide and wise counsellor was gone. It was difficult to force the cruel belief of her immediate danger on her mind. The calamity was more than her recoiling thoughts could grasp. By degrees, a faint hope broke up through her prayers, and instead of pleading, she fell into a sad reverie. It was a heart-disease; this she knew well; but the peculiar form—what young girl could be expected to understand that? Sometimes such maladies are slow, painful, and full of anguish. Again, they only give a faint indication of the death which is surely coming, and when it does come, strikes its victim down in an instant. This was the insidious disease which had blinded the poor girl to its progress till the end was upon her. She could not believe in its reality. Now that she was alone, hope would spring up in her heart; she thought of that sweet old face, the low, calm voice, and it seemed to her impossible that death could be so near. Gradually her prayer, which had at first been a passionate entreaty for an existence so precious, took almost a glow of thankfulness. It seemed as if that dear life must be prolonged; as if the very agony of her own prayers must win a beneficent answer from God.
Almost tranquillized by this faith, the weary young creature dropped her head upon her folded arms, and a feeling of drowsy languor came upon her—not sleep, but rest. All at once she was aroused by a shock of the whole frame, so strong and sudden, that she started to her feet with a cry of affright. Quivering in every nerve, wild with nameless terror, she went down to the chamber she had just left.
Mrs. Barr still sat by the window. The pure radiance of the moon lay full upon the hands clasped in her lap, the Quaker cap which framed in that lovely old face—and the muslin neckerchief folded over her bosom. Catharine, with a sigh of infinite relief, went up to the easy-chair. She was not asleep—not even in pain. Those kind, blue eyes were open—that gentle mouth had a smile upon it. She was resting, Catharine thought, nothing more—evidently resting, and did not wish to be disturbed. Had she not asked to be left alone? Catharine moved softly to a shadowy part of the room and sat down, holding her very breath, in fear of disturbing the sick woman, who had not cared to recognize her presence. The music from down-stairs rose to her faintly. Sometimes the dying echo of a laugh came floating upward; but after a while, all this ceased; then the stillness in the room oppressed her.
Again Catharine arose and went close to Mrs. Barr’s chair.
“Have you had a good rest, dear mother?” she whispered, bending close to the motionless head.
There was no answer—no sign, no breath that she could hear or feel. She saw the eyes turned to the open window—the smile still hovering about those lips; but she also saw that the whole face had turned whiter than whiteness. The awful silence of the grave was there, and she knew that her best friend had passed over the “dark waters” when that shock fell upon her, breaking up alike her hopes and her prayers.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE OLD MANSION-HOUSE.
A few old houses still remain among the villas, hotels, and cottages that make Staten Island a little Eden. Many of these are on the shore, and not being so accessible as these modern structures, are of course less known. One of these buildings, situated almost in the verge of the Island, surrounded by groves of primeval trees, fruit-orchards, and flowing thickets, must now become the scene of our story.
The house was an old, rambling affair, with irregular wings and a centre building three stories high, with heavy stone chimneys, that time itself seemed incapable of destroying, and a peaked roof, with gable-windows, that, however, were all for outside show, looking only from an open garret. It was a substantial edifice, built of stone, but the wings were of wood, with verandas and French windows, half buried in creeping vines and climbing roses. A tall elm-tree towered upward in front of the centre building, sweeping its long pendent branches over the roof, thus softening the contrast between the grim old front with its stone portal, and the wings with their fanciful drapery of flowers. The ground sloped unevenly from the front of the building, and was broken up here and there with fruit-trees and flowerthickets, until it was separated from a gentle hill by one of those small inland streams that render quiet scenery of this kind so beautiful. Here a clump of weeping-willows gave their waving and golden green to the air, forming one of the most lovely features of a landscape every way Arcadian.