The dawn-light came into the room, dimming the lamp-light with which it could not blend; a tremor passed through the tiny frame, the breath fluttered once or twice upon the lips, and the baby died. Anna had called the father, and he stood by, watching in heavy oppression.
Quietly, with the great submission of spirit which death brings, Anna washed and dressed the little body, putting on the garments of fairylike texture and proportion which she had seen Mally making with warm, dexterous fingers, a few weeks before. Then, having prayed, she left the place and walked home alone through the silent streets, with the consecration of the hour full upon her.
CHAPTER XXIII
He who professeth to believe in one Almighty Creator, and in his Son Jesus Christ, and is yet more intent on the honours, profits, and friendships of the world than he is, in singleness of heart, to stand faithful to the Christian religion, is in the channel of idolatry; while the Gentile, who, notwithstanding some mistaken opinions, is established in the true principle of virtue, and humbly adores an Almighty Power, may be of the number that fear God and work righteousness.—John Woolman.
A physician’s carriage stood before the house when Anna reached it, and within there was a stir unusual for that early hour. Jane met her on the landing, and answered her questions.
“Yes, ma’am; Mrs. Burgess, she was all right as far as I could see when I helped her get to bed, but I hadn’t got her light out when I heard her give a queer kind of groan, and when I got to her, her face was that twisted all to one side, that it would make your heart ache to see her. But that isn’t so bad now; you’d hardly notice it. And she don’t seem paralyzed; she moves ’most any way.”
“Then she is better?”
“Well, ma’am, I don’t know as you could say so much better. The worst of it is, her mind ain’t right. She looks sort of blank, and when she talks it ain’t natural, but all confused like, and it’s hard, poor lady, for her to get anything out; she talks thick and slow, so different from herself.”
A moment later Anna saw Keith, and heard the verdict of the physician. Madam Burgess had suffered a paralytic seizure of a somewhat unusual character. He should watch the case with great interest. There was evidently a small clot on the left side of the brain which affected the mental equilibrium, and produced something like delirium. The ultimate result could only be fatal, and it was doubtful whether full consciousness would return before death.
That afternoon Anna was permitted to go to her mother-in-law’s bedside. Keith followed her, full of eager hope that for her there might be the clear and unquestionable recognition which had thus far been denied him. It was a strangely painful thing to Anna to see the familiar figure of a woman so graceful, so precise, so secure in her high-bred self-possession, so decided in her conscious self-direction, prostrate, dull, lethargic; to hear in place of the cold, clear modulations of her voice a meaningless, half-articulate muttering. She stood for a moment beside the bed, her heart sinking with the piteousness of the sight, herself apparently unnoticed by the stricken woman.