She paused breathless and exhausted, but I answered not. Low sobs came gaspingly from my bosom, on which a mountain of ice seemed freezing.
"If we could die together," she continued, with increasing solemnity, "if I could bear you in these feeble arms to the mercy-seat of God, and know you were safe from temptation, and sorrow, and sin, the bitterness of death would be passed. It is a fearful thing to live, my child, far more fearful than to die,—but life is the trial of faith, and death the victory."
"And now," she added, "before my spirit wings its upward flight, receive my dying injunction. If you live to years of womanhood, and your heart awakens to love,—as, alas, for woman's destiny it will,—then read my life and sad experience, and be warned by my example. Mrs. Linwood is intrusted with the manuscript, blotted with your mother's tears. Oh, Gabriella, by all your love and reverence for the memory of the dead,—by the scarlet dye that can be made white as wool,—by your own hope in a Saviour's mercy, forgive the living,—if living he indeed be!"
Her eyes closed as she uttered these words, and a purplish gloom gathered beneath her eyes. The doctor came in and administered ether, which partially revived her. I have never been able to inhale it since, without feeling sick and faint, and recalling the deadly odor of that chamber of mourning.
About daybreak, I heard Dr. Harlowe say in the lowest whisper to Mrs. Linwood that she could not live more than one hour. He turned the hour-glass as he spoke. She had collected all the energies of life in that parting interview,—nothing remained but a faint, fluttering, quick-drawn breath.
I sat looking at the hour-glass, counting every gliding sand, till each little, almost invisible particle, instead of dropping into the crystal receptacle, seemed to fall on my naked heart like the mountain rock. O my God! there are only two or three sands left, and my mother's life hangs on the last sinking grain. Some one rises with noiseless steps to turn the glass.
With a shriek that might have arrested the departing spirit, I sprang forward and fell senseless on the floor.
I remember nothing that passed during the day. I was told afterwards, that when I recovered from the fainting fit, the doctor, apprehensive of spasms, gave me a powerful anodyne to quiet my tortured nerves. When I became conscious of what was passing around me, the moon was shining on the bed where I lay, and the shadow of the softly rustling leaves quivering on the counterpane. I was alone, but I heard low, murmuring voices in the next room, and there was a light there more dim and earthly than the pale splendor that enveloped me. I leaned forward on my elbow and looked beyond the open door. The plain white curtains of the bed were looped up on each side, and the festoons swayed heavily in the night air, which made the flame of the lamp dim and wavering. A form reclined on the bed, but the face was all covered, though it was a midsummer's night. As I looked, I remembered all, and I rose and glided through the moonlight to the spot where my mother slept. Sustained by unnatural excitement, I seemed borne on air, and as much separated from the body as the spirit so lately divorced from that unbreathing clay; it was the effect of the opiate I had taken, but the pale watchers in the death-chamber shuddered at my unearthly appearance.
"Let there be no light here but light from heaven," said I, extinguishing the fitful lamp-flame; and the room was immediately illuminated with a white, ghostly lustre. Then kneeling by the bed, I folded back the linen sheet, gazed with folded hands, and dry, dilated eyes on the mystery of death. The moon, "that sun of the sleepless," that star of the mourner, shone full on her brow, and I smiled to see how divinely fair, how placid, how angelic she looked. Her dark, shining hair, the long dark lashes that pencilled her white cheek, alone prevented her from seeming a statue of the purest marble, fashioned after some Grecian model. Beauty and youth had come back to her reposing features, and peace and rapture too. A smile, such as no living lips ever wore, lingered round her mouth and softened its mute expression. She was happy. God had given his beloved rest. She was happy. It was not death on which I was gazing; it was life,—the dawn of immortal, of eternal life. Angels were watching around her. I did not see them, but I felt the shadow of their snow-white wings. I felt them fanning my brow and softly lifting the locks that fell darkly against the sheet, so chilly white. Others might have thought it the wind sighing through the leafy lattice-work; but the presence of angels was real to me,—and who can say they were not hovering there?
That scene is past, but its remembrance is undying. The little cottage is inhabited by strangers. The grass grows rank near the brink of the fountain, and the mossy stone once moistened by my tears has rolled down and choked its gushing. My mother sleeps by the side of the faithful Peggy, beneath a willow that weeps over a broken shaft,—fitting monument for a broken heart.