“No,” replied she; “the afternoon she died she said, ‘I want to be alone,’ and, not thinking her near her end, I took my work and sat just outside the door. I looked in once, about half an hour after, but she lay quietly asleep, with her cheek in her hand,—so. By-and-bye I thought I would speak to her, so I went in, and saw her lying just as she did when I looked at her before. I spoke to her, but she did not answer me; she was dead, ma’am.”
O, how mournfully sounded in Ruth’s ears those plaintive words, “I want to be alone.” Poor Mary! aye, better even in death ‘alone,’ than gazed at by careless, hireling eyes, since he who should have closed those drooping lids, had wearied of their faded light.
“Did she speak of no one?” asked Ruth; “mention no one?”
“No—yes; I recollect now that she said something about calling Ruth; I didn’t pay any attention, for they don’t know what they are saying, you know. She scribbled something, too, on a bit of paper; I found it under her pillow, when I laid her out. I shouldn’t wonder if it was in my pocket now; I haven’t thought of it since. Ah! here it is,” said Mrs. Bunce, as she handed the slip of paper to Ruth.
It ran thus:—“I am not crazy, Ruth, no, no—but I shall be; the air of this place stifles me; I grow weaker—weaker. I cannot die here; for the love of heaven, dear Ruth, come and take me away.”
“Only three mourners,—a woman and two little girls,” exclaimed a by-stander, as Ruth followed Mary Leon to her long home.
CHAPTER LV.
The sudden change in Mrs. Skiddy’s matrimonial prospects necessitated Ruth to seek other quarters. With a view to still more rigid economy, she hired a room without board, in the lower part of the city.