Spring had now come; but its bland and balmy breath brought no relief to the suffering widow. From the hour she had been compelled to take to her bed, her disease, though sometimes lulled, or raging less fiercely than at other times, had never for a moment loosened its tenacious grasp. And although her cheerful words, and meek, uncomplaining looks, had often misled her anxious son, or, at least, prevented him from despairing of her recovery, yet the dry, parched, red tongue, the daily return of the bright hectic spot, and the tense, hurrying and unvarying beat of the strained pulses, might have told him how certainly and rapidly the work of destruction was going on at the citadel of life, and better prepared him for the agonizing scene which was now to follow.
It was a calm and pleasant evening towards the close of April, and the low descending sun was shedding the mellow light of his parting beams over the joyful face of reanimating nature. The invalid, during all the fore part of the day, had suffered greatly from pain—that general and undefinable distress which is so frequently found to be the precursor of approaching dissolution. To this had succeeded a sort of lethargic sleep, from which it was not easy to arouse her, so that she could be made to take any notice of what was passing around her. But now she awoke, clear and collected; and, glancing round the room, with a sort of pensive animation, met and answered the inquiring and solicitous look of her son with an affectionate smile. Presently her wandering eye rested on some objects of the landscape, glimpses of which she had caught through one of the small patched windows of the room, and she faintly observed,—
“How pleasant it appears without! Harry,” she continued after a thoughtful pause, “could you take out that window before me? I feel a desire to look out once more on the green earth and breathe the sweet air of spring.”
“Yes, mother,” said the other, approaching the bed, with a surprised and hesitating air; “yes, I could easily do it, I presume; but would it be quite safe for you to be exposed to the evening air?”
“Yes, Harry; the time for the exercise of such cares is gone by. You need fear no more for me, now, my son,” she replied in accents of tender sadness.
The son then, with a doubtful and troubled look, proceeded in silence to comply with the unexpected request; after which, he gently raised the head of the invalid, who, thereupon, gazed long and thoughtfully on the variegated landscape, which lay spread out in tranquil beauty beneath her dimly-kindling eye.
“How beautiful!” she at length feebly exclaimed, in a tone of melancholy rapture—“beautiful of itself, but more beautiful as the type of man's destiny after his body has mingled with the dust. The scene we here behold, my son, exhibits the resurrection of nature. In summer the foliage and blossom expands, in autumn the fruit is perfected, and in winter the visible part falls back to earth and perishes, leaving the hidden seed or germ to spring forth again into another life. So it has been, so it will be, with me. I have had my brief summer of life, my still briefer autumn, and now my winter of death is at hand, from which I trust to come forth into the more glorious spring of life eternal.”
“Do not talk thus, mother,” responded the son, greatly moved—“do not talk thus: you distress me. I trust you may yet recover. You certainly look brighter this evening; and I hope another day will find you still better.”
“No, Harry, not better, as you mean. If I appear brighter, it is but the brightness of the last flashing up of the expiring taper. I feel that my time is come, and thanks to Him who has prepared my heart to hail the event as a relief and a blessing.”
“O, my mother, my mother, how can I part with you?”