How long she thus remained she knew not. Darkness seemed to fall upon her, and a great horror of she knew not what. The next sensation of which she was really conscious was the touch of a hand on her shoulder, and the sound of a kindly and familiar voice in her ear—
“Lady Bride, ladybird, don’tee take on so bitterly, my lamb. It is not her they have put underground. May be she is near yu now whilst you weep. May be it was she who put it into my heart to come here just at this time. If they can grieve whom the peace of God Almighty has wrapped round, I think ’twould grieve her to see yu breaking your heart to-day.”
“O Abner!” cried the girl, sitting up and pushing the heavy hair out of her eyes, “I am glad you have come! I felt as though there was no one left in the wide world but me—that I was all alone, and all the world was dead. But I have not been like this before. Till they took her away I felt I had her with me. I knew that she was near—that she was watching over me. There was always the hope that she was not dead—that her spirit might come back once more. O Abner, Abner! why does God always take those who can least be spared? There are so many who would scarce be missed, and she——”
Bride could not complete her sentence, and the old gardener looked tenderly at her. He had known her from her birth. He had guided her tottering steps round the garden before she could fairly walk alone. He had watched her growth and development with an almost fatherly tenderness and pride. She was as dear to him as though she had been his own flesh and blood; and the mother who was now taken away had never interfered with the friendship between the child and the old servant; nay, she had many and many a time held long talks herself with Abner, and knew how strong a sympathy there was between his views and her own, despite their widely different walk in life. And so in the old gardener Bride had a friend to whom at such a moment as this she could talk more freely than to any other living creature.
“May be the Lord wants the most beautiful flowers for His own garden, my Ladybird,” answered the old man, using the familiar pet name which had grown up between them in childhood. “When I used to gather flowers for her Grace’s room, I chose the sweetest and most perfect blossoms I could find. We mustn’t wonder if the Lord sometimes does the same—nor grudge Him the fairest and purest flowers, even though the loss is ours.”
Slightly soothed by the thought, Bride tried to smile.
“Only it seems as though we wanted them so much more,” said she.
“I don’t know. The dear Lord must have loved her full as much as we do. He lent her to us for many years; may be He knew she would be better placed in His garden now, where no pruning-knife need ever touch her, and no suns can scorch her, and where her leaves will never wither. Sure, my Ladybird, yu du not grudge her her place in God’s garden of Paradise?”
“O Abner! I will try not. I know what you mean; she did have much suffering to bear here, and I am thankful she will have no more. But there are some things so hard to understand, even when we believe them. I cannot bear to think of her body lying in the cold ground, and becoming—oh! it does not bear thinking of.”
“Then, why think of it, Ladybird?—why not look beyond this poor corruptible body, and think of the glorious resurrection body with which we shall all arise?”