During this fortnight, which passed so happily in the great old mansion in Mount street, Mr. Harris had traced out Lally’s history step by step from the hour of her birth until the present moment, not that he doubted her, but that he desired to be supplied with irrefragable proofs of her identity, should the need arise for them.
The lapse of the fortnight indicated brought the time to October. One evening, when the night was wild without, Mrs. Wroat, Lally and Peters sat late in the parlor adjoining the bedroom of the former. Lally played and sang a grand old anthem, while the old lady’s crooked chin was bent forward upon her gold-headed staff, and her bright black eyes filled with tears. Then followed some old-time hymns, such as the Covenanters sang in the lonely Scottish wilds, in their hours of stolen secret worship. When the sweet voice had died away, and the strains of music melted into silence, the old lady called Lally to her. The girl came, and seeing the unwonted emotion of her aged relative, knelt before her and caressed her hand softly. The withered yellow hands were upraised tremblingly, and dropped upon the girl’s dusky head.
“God bless you, even as I bless you, my darling,” said Mrs. Wroat, with a great yearning over the young creature. “Poor orphaned child! You have blessed my last days; may your life be blessed. Peters, when I am gone, stay with Lally. Be everything to her—maid, attendant, nurse, mother—all that you have been to me.”
“I will—I will!” said Peters, as if registering a vow.
“And now, my darling, good-night,” said Mrs. Wroat softly. “Kiss me, Lally! Again! Again! Good-night.”
The girl enfolded the withered form in her arms, and kissed the old lady a hundred times with passionate fervor, and then, sobbing, went up to her own room.
Peters put her mistress to bed. The old lady seemed as well, or better than usual, but there was something unusual in her manner, and Peters sat up to watch by her.
“If she wakes, she’ll find old Peters by her side,” the woman said to herself. “How sweet she sleeps!”
Toward morning the maid dozed. Just at dawn she awakened with a great start, and a sudden chill. She sprang up and leaned over the recumbent figure of her mistress. How pale the thin, sharp features were! One long lock of gray hair lay on the withered cheek; the bony hands were clasped upon the bosom; the hooked nose and the crooked chin almost met, but upon the shrivelled mouth was a smile far more sweet and lovely than any that had played upon those lips in the old lady’s far-past youth—a smile such as angels wear!
Peters thrust her hand upon the sleeper’s heart. It was silent. The heart, clogged or hampered by disease, had ceased to work hours before; all the machinery of life had stopped; and Mrs. Wroat had wakened from her sleep in another world! Lally’s generous and noble friend and protector was dead!