Cora took his nerveless hand between hers, and raised her great blue eyes, now full of a light more touching than tears, to his face.
“Papa, papa, come home; you told me that she would never wake up again.”
He turned his heavy eyes upon the child with a look of questioning weariness, as if he had not comprehended her, and remained gazing in her face, with a mournful smile parting his lips.
“Come!” said the child, pulling gently at his hand—“come!”
He yielded to her infant force as if he were himself a child to be thus guided, and walked with a feeble step toward the house. But its cheerfulness mocked him. Bees that had been gathering stores from the honeysuckle porch—birds lodged in the great elm, and a thousand summer insects that love the sunshine, all set up a clamor of melody that made him shrink as if some violence had been offered. He said nothing, but I could see the color fade like mist from his lips. We had brought him too suddenly from the shadows of the grave; the soul requires time before it can leave the vale of tears to stand uncovered in the sunshine. We entered a little parlor, very simple in its adornments, but neat and cheerful as a room could be. The casements were draped with foliage, and this gave a soft twilight to the apartment, that soothed us all.
He sat down in a large, easy-chair, draped with white dimity, that gave a strong contrast to his black robe. Cora climbed to his knee, and put up her quivering lips for a kiss; but he did not heed the action, and I saw her pretty eyes fill with tears—she, poor thing, who had shed so many that day.
I could not bear that look of sorrow, and pressed close up to his other knee.
“Sir, papa,” for she had called him this; and why should not any other child? “Papa, Cora wants to kiss you; she has been trying and trying, but you don’t mind in the least.”
He looked at me with a bewildered stare, glancing down from my face to the brilliant garments that contrasted like flame against his black robe.
“It is Cora, poor little Cora, you should speak to—not me,” I said. “Look, her eyes are full again, and she has cried herself almost to death before.”