"I see it, and I know you too well to expect it. You look at this moment as calm and collected as if we were sitting sewing by our own fireside. Ah! those happy days are gone,—gone forever!"
"Folly! Why prate thus?"
"Nay, mother, I cannot bear to rest shut up with my own wretched thoughts! It relieves my heart to talk of bygone times, when I little expected to come to this."
"Mean, cowardly creature!"
"I know I am a coward, mother. I am afraid to die! Every one cannot boast of your resolution. I do not possess it. I have tried as much as I could to imitate you. I refused to listen to the priest because you did not like it. Still I may have been wrong in sending the holy man away; for," added the wretched creature, with a shudder, "who can tell what is after death? Mother, do you hear me? After, I say! And it only wants—"
"Exactly three hours, and you will know all about it!"
"How can you speak so indifferently on such a dreadful subject? Yet true enough; in three short hours, we who now sit talking to each other, who, if at liberty, should ail nothing, but be ready to enjoy life, must die. Oh, mother, can you not say one word to comfort me?"
"Be bold, girl, and die as you have lived, a true Martial!"
"You should not talk thus to your daughter," interposed the old soldier, with a serious air; "you would have acted more like a parent had you allowed her to listen to the priest when he came."
Again the widow contemptuously shrugged her shoulders, and, without deigning to notice the soldier further than by bestowing on him a look of withering contempt, she repeated to Calabash: