"I am sent for," she returned.
"'The wave may be cold, and the tide may be strong;
But, hark! on the shore the angels' glad song!'
"Do you know that sweet hymn, Mrs. Percivale? There I shall be able to love him aright, to serve him aright!
"'Here all my labor is so poor!
Here all my love so faint!
But when I reach the heavenly door,
I cease the weary plaint.'"
I couldn't help wishing she would cease it a little sooner.
"But suppose," I ventured to say, "it were the will of God that you should live many years yet."
"That cannot be. And why should you wish it for me? Is it not better to depart and be with him? What pleasure could it be to a weak, worn creature like me to go on living in this isle of banishment?"
"But suppose you were to recover your health: would it not be delightful to do something for his sake? If you would think of how much there is to be done in the world, perhaps you would wish less to die and leave it."
"Do not tempt me," she returned reproachfully.
And then she quoted a passage the application of which to her own case appeared to me so irreverent, that I confess I felt like Abraham with the idolater; so far at least as to wish her out of the house, for I could bear with her, I thought, no longer.