I sit and watch them, and watch the sick-lamp flicker in the night, and watch the blue morning crawl over the hills; and the old words are stealing down my thought: That is the substance, this the shadow; that the reality, this the dream.
I watch her face upon the pillow; the happy secret on its lips; the smile within its eyes. It is nearly a year now since God sent the face to me. What it has done for me He knows; what the next year and all the years are to be without it, He knows, too.
It is slipping away,—slipping. And I—must—lose it.
Perhaps I should not have said what I said to-night; but being weak from watching, and seeing how glad she was to go, seeing how all the peace was for her, all the pain for us, I cried, “O Auntie, Auntie, why can’t we go too? Why can’t Faith and I go with you?”
But she answered me only, “Mary, He knows.”
We will be brave again to-morrow. A little more sunshine in the room! A little more of Faith and the dolly!
The Sabbath.
She asked for the child at bedtime to-night, and I laid her down in her night-dress on her mother’s arm. She kissed her, and said her prayers, and talked a bit about Mary Ann, and to-morrow, and her snow man. I sat over by the window in the dusk, and watched a little creamy cloud that was folding in the moon. Presently their voices grew low, and at last Faith’s stopped altogether. Then I heard in fragments this:—
“Sleepy, dear? But you won’t have many more talks with mamma. Keep awake just a minute, Faith, and hear—can you hear? Mamma will never, never forget her little girl; she won’t go away very far; she will always love you. Will you remember as long as you live? She will always see you, though you can’t see her, perhaps. Hush, my darling, don’t cry! Isn’t God naughty? No, God is good; God is always good. He won’t take mamma a great way off. One more kiss? There! now you may go to sleep. One more! Come, Cousin Mary.”
June 6.