It is a long time since I have written here. I did not want to open the book till I was sure that I could open it quietly, and could speak as she would like to have me speak, of what remains to be written.
But a very few words will tell it all.
It happened so naturally and so happily, she was so glad when the time came, and she made me so glad for her sake, that I cannot grieve. I say it from my honest heart, I cannot grieve. In the place out of which she has gone, she has left me peace. I think of something that Miss Procter said about the opening of that golden gate,
“round which the kneeling spirits wait.
The halo seems to linger round those kneeling closest to the door:
The joy that lightened from that place shines still upon the watcher’s face.”
I think more often of some things that she herself said in the very last of those pleasant talks, when, turning a leaf in her little Bible, she pointed out to me the words:—
“It is expedient for you that I go away; for, if I go not away, the Comforter will not come.”
It was one spring-like night,—the twenty-ninth of March.
She had been in less pain, and had chatted and laughed more with us than for many a day. She begged that Faith might stay till dark, and might bring her Noah’s ark and play down upon the foot of the bed where she could see her. I sat in the rocking-chair with my face to the window. We did not light the lamps.
The night came on slowly. Showery clouds flitted by, but there was a blaze of golden color behind them. It broke through and scattered them; it burned them, and melted them; it shot great pink and purple jets up to the zenith; it fell and lay in amber mist upon the hills. A soft wind swept by, and darted now and then into the glow, and shifted it about, color away from color, and back again.
“See, Faith!” she said softly; “put down the little camel a minute, and look!” and added after, but neither to the child nor to me, it seemed: “At eventide there shall be light.” Phœbe knocked presently, and I went out to see what was wanted, and planned a little for Auntie’s breakfast, and came back.