Nellie, assisted by Margaret, placed Mrs. Helmstedt in an easier position and arranged the bed drapery. Then, while old Mrs. Compton and Dr. Hartley paid a visit to the room, she took Margaret downstairs and constrained her to take a cup of coffee, that she might be able to attend upon her mother through the day, Nellie said. And upon this adjuration, Margaret forced herself to take some refreshment.
After that the young girl resumed her watch, and never again left her dying mother.
As yesterday passed, so passed this day, except that Mrs. Helmstedt was sinking faster. As yesterday, so to-day, she lay quietly, in a gentle, murmuring delirium, not one word of which was audible, but which flowed on in a continuous stream of inarticulate music. Her life waned with the day. Late in the afternoon, during a lucid interval, she signed her wish that all might depart from the room and leave her alone with her child.
And they went.
And as upon the night preceding, so upon this afternoon, at a sign from Mrs. Helmstedt, Margaret lay down beside her, as if consenting to take some rest. At another sign she drew her mother’s powerless hand over her own shoulder. And then, with a sigh of content, Mrs. Helmstedt closed her eyes as if to sleep.
The day was dying. The sun was sinking low on the horizon. In the parlor below the friends of the family were watching its slow but sure descent, and mentally comparing it with the steady decline of life in one above, and mournfully wondering whether she could live to see another sunrise.
In the recess of the beloved bay window Mrs. Helmstedt’s forsaken harp still stood in mournful splendor. The level beams of the setting sun, now shining through this window, touched the harp, drawing from its burnished frame responsive rays, “in lines of golden light.” A moment thus stood the harp in a blaze of quivering glory, and then, as a sheaf that is gathered up, the rays were all withdrawn, and the sun sunk below the horizon. Simultaneously, as if some awful hand had swept its strings, each chord of that harp in swift succession snapped, in a long, wild, wailing diapason of melody, that died in silence with the dying sun, as though all music, light and life went out together, forever. All arose to their feet and looked into each other’s faces, in awe-stricken silence. And the same instant a sudden, prolonged, despairing shriek rang through the house.
“It is Margaret! Something has happened!” exclaimed Ralph Houston, breaking the spell.
All immediately hurried upstairs with prophetic intimations of what had occurred.
They were right.