Betty ran to her, knelt down beside her, and touched the pale white hand that lay upon the chair’s arm:
“Miss Flora!” she whispered in a strange wonder and alarm.
“Mother of God!” the old lady’s lips murmured—“the child is come!”
She smiled; put out her slender bloodless fingers, and placed them upon the girl’s fresh brown hair:
“Dear sweet heart!” said she—“in my love for thee, and in thy gentleness to me, I have known something of motherhood.... I have not—been—wholly—barren.”
Betty took the bloodless hand between hers, kissed it and chafed it. It was very cold. She could not speak for tears.
The old eyes smiled upon the girl. After a while the dying poetess added:
“Nor have I been wholly alone.”
She sighed; and, with a smile, she died.
Betty, her eyes filled with tears, put out her dainty milk-white hand, with rosy fingers, to the dead eyelids and drew down the blinds that curtained the windows of the departed soul.