But Margaret hesitated no longer. "I think I am the better person," she interposed, gently. Then, bending forward, she said, with distinctness, "Mrs. Thorne, Garda shall live with me, or near me under my charge, as long as she is so young and alone, as long as she needs my care. You have given me a great trust, I hereby accept it; and I will keep it with all the faithfulness I can." Her voice took on an almost solemn tone as the last words were spoken.
Winthrop, glancing at her as she bent forward beside him, perceived that though she was holding herself in strict control, she was moved by some deep emotion; he could feel that she was trembling. Again, even then and there, he gave an instant to the same conjecture which had occupied his thoughts before. Why should she show emotion? why should her voice take on that tone? She was not excitable; he had had occasion to know that she was not afraid of death, she had stood beside too many death-beds in her visits among the poor (not that he admired her philanthropy); it could not be that she had suddenly become so fond of poor Mrs. Thorne. But he left his conjectures unsolved. A faint but beautiful smile was passing strangely over the mother's face, strangely, because no feature stirred or changed—she was beyond that—and yet the smile was there; the eyes became so transfigured that the two who were watching stood awe-struck; for it seemed as if she were beholding something, just behind or above them, which was invisible to them, something which had lifted from her all the pains and cares of her earthly life, and set her free. For some moments longer the beautiful radiance shone there. Then the light departed, and death alone was left, though the eyes retained a consciousness. They seemed to try to turn to Garda, who was still kneeling with her head hidden against her mother's shoulder.
"Take her in your arms, Garda," whispered Margaret; "your face is the last she wishes to see."
Winthrop had summoned Dr. Kirby; the other friends came softly in. For twenty minutes more the slow breaths came and went, but with longer and longer intervals between. Garda, lying beside her mother, held her in her arms, and the dying woman's fixed eyes rested on her child's for some time; then consciousness faded, the lids drooped. Garda put her warm cheek against the small white face, and, thus embraced, the mother's earthly life ebbed away, while in the still room ascended, in the voice of the clergyman, the last prayer—"O Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of men after they are delivered from their earthly prisons, we humbly commend to Thee the soul of this thy servant, our dear sister—" Our dear sister; they were all there, her Gracias friends—Mrs. Kirby, Mrs. Carew, Mrs. Moore, Madam Giron, Madam Ruiz—and they all wept for her as though she had been a sister indeed. In the hall outside, at the open door, stood handsome Manuel, not ashamed of his tears; and near him, more devout as well as more self-controlled, knelt Torres, reverently waiting, with head turned away, for the end.
Dr. Kirby laid the little hand he had been holding, down upon the coverlet. "She has gone," he said, in a low voice. And, with a visible effort to control his features, he passed round to the other side of the bed, and lifting Garda tenderly, tried to draw her away. But Garda clung to the dead, and cried so heart-brokenly that all the women, with fresh tears starting at the desolate sound—that sound of audible sobbing which first tells those outside the still room that the blow has fallen—all the women came one by one and tried to comfort her. But it was not until Margaret Harold took her in her arms that she was at all quieted.
"Come with me, Garda," she said. "You are not leaving your mother alone, your mother is not here; she has gone home to God. Come with me; remember she wished it." And Garda yielded.
They buried Mrs. Thorne in the family burying-ground at East Angels (the one of which she had spoken), her daughter and her friends following, on foot, the coffin, borne on the shoulders of eight of their former slaves. Thus the little procession crossed the Levels to the secluded enclosure at the far end, Mr. Moore in his surplice leading the way. A high hedge of cedar-trees set closely together like a wall, their dark branches sweeping the ground, encircled the place; across the narrow opening which had been left for entrance, was a low paling-gate. Within, ranged in a circle, were a number of oblong coquina tombs, broad and low, without inscriptions; here slept all the Dueros, the first Englishman, Edgar Thorne, and the few American-born Thornes who had succeeded him. Into the presence of this company was now borne Melissa Whiting.
Her coffin was covered with the beautiful flowers of the South; but within, hidden on her breast, there was a faded spray of arbutus, the last "May-flowers" which had been sent to her, years before, from her northern home; she had given them to Margaret, and asked her, when the time came, to place them there. Thus was she lowered to her rest. All who were present came one by one, according to Gracias custom, to cast into the deep grave the handful of white sand which, in Florida, represents the "earth to earth"—that sound which, soft though it be, breaks the heart. Garda, shivering, clung to Margaret and hid her face. Then rose Mr. Moore's voice among them: "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, 'Write. From henceforth blessed are the dead—for they rest from their labors.'"
Beautiful words, unmeaning to the young and happy, more and more do they convey to many of us a dear comfort, for ourselves as well as for those already gone—blessed are the dead, for they rest from their labors. For they rest.
That evening the negroes of the neighborhood assembled at East Angels, and, standing outside in the darkness, under the windows, sang their own funeral hymn; their voices rose with sweetness in the wildly plaintive minor strains; then grew softer and softer, as, still singing sweetly, they marched quietly away.