“Helen, my dear,” said she, “I feel a great deal better. I must have slept a long time. Have I not? Give me a little water. There, now sit down close by my bed and listen. If that knife cuts my breath again, I shall have to give up talking. Just raise my head a little, and hand me my spectacles off the big Bible. I can’t talk without them. But how dim the glasses are. Wipe them for me, child. There’s dust settled on them.”
Helen took the glasses and wiped them with her soft linen handkerchief, but she sighed as she did so, well knowing that it was the eyes that were growing dim instead of the crystal that covered them.
“A little better—a little better,” said the spinster, looking wistfully towards the candle. “Now, Helen, my dear, just step into the other room and bring here my wheel. It is heavy, but not beyond your strength. I always bring it in here at night, but I can’t do it now. I was taken sick so sudden, I forgot it. It’s my stay-by and stand-by—you know.”
Helen looked so startled and wild, that Miss Thusa imagined her struck with superstitious terror at the thought of going alone into another room.
“I’m sorry to see you’ve not outgrown your weaknesses,” said she. “It’s my fault, I’m afraid, but I hope the Lord will forgive me for it.”
Helen was not afraid of the lonely room, so near and so lately occupied, but she was afraid of encountering Clinton, who might be lingering by the open door. But Miss Thusa’s request, sick and helpless as she was, had the authority of a command, and she rose to obey her. She barred the outer door without catching the gleam of Clinton’s dark, shining hair, and having brought the wheel, with panting breath, for it was indeed very heavy, sat down with a feeling of security and relief, since the enemy was now shut out by double barriers. One window was partly raised to admit the air to Miss Thusa’s oppressed lungs, but they were both fastened above.
“You had better not exert yourself, Miss Thusa,” said Helen, after giving her the medicine which the doctor had prescribed. “You are not strong enough to talk much now.”
“I shall never be stronger, my child. My day is almost spent, and the night cometh, wherein no man can work. I always thought I should have a sudden call, and when I was struck with that sharp pain, I knew my Master was knocking at the door. The Lord be praised, I don’t want to bar him out. I’m ready and willing to go, willing to close my long and lonely life. I have had few to love, and few to care for me, but, thank God, the one I love best of all does not forsake me in my last hour. Helen, darling, God bless you—God bless you, my blessed child.”
The voice of the aged spinster faltered, and tear after tear trickled like wintry rain down her furrowed cheeks. All the affections of a naturally warm and generous heart lingered round the young girl, who was still to her the little child whom she had cradled in her arms, and hushed into the stillness of awe by her ghostly legends. Helen, inexpressibly affected, leaned her head on Miss Thusa’s pillow, and wept and sobbed audibly. She did not know, till this moment, how strong and deep-rooted was her attachment for this singular and isolated being. There was an individuality, a grandeur in her character, to which Helen’s timid, upward-looking spirit paid spontaneous homage. The wild sweep of her imagination, always kept within the limits of the purest morality, her stern sense of justice, tempered by sympathy and compassion, and the tenderness and sensibility that so often softened her harsh and severe lineaments, commanded her respect and admiration. Even her person, which was generally deemed ungainly and unattractive, was invested with majesty and a certain grace in Helen’s partial eyes. She was old—but hers was the sublimity of age without its infirmity, the hoariness of winter without its chillness. It seemed impossible to associate with her the idea of dissolution. Yet there she lay, helpless as an infant, with no more strength to resist the Almighty’s will, than a feather to hurl back the force of the whirlwind.
“You see that wheel, Helen,” said she, recovering her usual calmness—“I told you that I should bequeath it, as a legacy, to you. Don’t despise the homely gift. You see those brass bands, with grooves in them—just screw them to the right as hard as you can—a little harder.”