“Is Miss Jane up?”
“No, ma’am, I suppose not, as she has not rung for me. You know I always wait for her bell.”
“Perhaps she is not very well this morning. I will go and see whether she intends to get up.”
Salome went down stairs and knocked at the door of Miss 299 Jane’s room, but no sound was audible within, and she softly turned the bolt and entered.
The lamp was burning very dimly on a table close to the bed, and upon the open Bible lay the spectacles which the old lady had placed there twelve hours before, when she finished reading the nightly chapter that generally composed her mind and put her to sleep.
Salome conjectured that she had forgotten to extinguish the lamp, and as she cautiously turned the wick down, her eyes rested on the open page where pencil-lines marked the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, and enclosed the sixth and seventh verses, “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
Removing the glasses, the girl closed the book, and leaned over the pillow to look at the sleeper. She had turned her face towards the wall, and one hand lay under her head, pressed against her cheek, while the other held her handkerchief on the outside of the counterpane.
Very softly she slumbered, with a placid smile half breaking over her aged, wrinkled features; and unwilling to shorten the morning nap in which she so rarely indulged, Salome sat down at the foot of the bed, and leaning her head on her hands, fell into a painful and profound reverie.
Nearly an hour passed, unheeded by the unhappy girl, whose anguish rendered her indifferent to all that surrounded her; and after a while a keen pang thrilled her heart, as she heard Dr. Grey’s pleasant voice jesting with Stanley on the lawn. His happiness seemed an insult to her misery, and she stopped her ears to exclude the sound of his quiet laugh.
A half hour elapsed, and then his well-known rap was heard at the door. Miss Jane did not answer, and Salome was in no mood to welcome him home; but he waited for neither, and came in, gently closing the door behind him.