He stood in his silent grief, every nerve relaxed, every breath a sigh; his figure drooped, and the child’s hand fell loosely from his clasp. He leaned against the tree that was to overshadow the beloved one forever, and gazed down upon the grave as if his own soul were buried among the sods, and he were waiting patiently for the angels to come and help him search for it.
I felt that Cora was growing colder and colder. Her face was white as newly fallen snow. She ceased to weep, and allowed me to lead her away to the marble slab I had occupied when the funereal music led me to her.
We sat down together, and she leaned against my shoulder in profound silence. Her eyelids closed languidly, and the violet of her eyes tinged their whiteness like a shadow. For some minutes we sat thus, when a hoarse caw from the rooks circling above the tree, at whose foot lay the grave, made her start. She gave a single glance toward the tree, saw her father and the green sods, and, bursting into a fresh agony of tears, cried out,
“She is there—she is there—mother, mother—I have no mother!”
This cry awoke a strange pang in my bosom. For the first time there was entire sisterhood in our grief. Mother, mother, that was the thing for which I had pined, that was my own great want—I had felt it in the meadow when the lark fed its young—I had felt it in my convalescence—in the picture gallery—everywhere, and now this harassing want was hers also. As she cried aloud for her mother, so did my soul echo it; and, as if her own lips had uttered the sound, I wailed forth,
“Mother, mother—I have no mother!”
With that we flung our arms around each other, as flowers sometimes twine their stems in the dark, and were silent again.
But this intense excitement could not last with children so impulsive and so ardent. After a while Cora began to be impatient of her father’s immovability; it frightened her.
“Let us go to him,” she whispered; “he seems dropping to sleep as she did. How white and still his hands look, falling so loosely against the black robe.”
We crept toward the stricken man, and stood beside him in breathless awe. He did not observe us; his eyes riveted themselves upon the sods; the drooping of his limbs increased. He seemed about to seat himself on the earth.