Her eyes filled, and she turned away, as if to complete her preparations for going forth.
"Strength has thus far been given according to thy day," said Aymond. "I trust that it will be thus bestowed for ever." And he gave his next attention to one whom he was never known to neglect; one who loved him as perhaps nobody else loved him,--Heins's young brother, Christian.
Christian had suffered more in the twelve years of his little life than it is to be hoped many endure in the course of an ordinary existence. A complication of diseases had left him in a state of weakness from which there was little or no hope that he would ever recover, and subject to occasional attacks of painful illness which must in time wear him out. He had not grown, nor set a foot to the ground, since he was five years old: he was harassed by a perpetual cough, and in constant dread of the return of a capricious and fearful pain which seldom left him unvisited for three days together, and sometimes lasted for hours. When in expectation of this pain, the poor boy could think of little else, and found it very difficult to care for any body; but when suffering from nothing worse than his usual helplessness, his great delight was to expect M. Aymond, and to get him seated beside his couch. Aymond thought that he heard few voices more cheerful than that of his little friend, Christian, when it greeted him from the open window, or made itself heard into the passage,--'Will you come in here, M. Aymond? I am in the wainscoat parlour to-day, M. Aymond.'
Christian had no words at command this day, He stretched out his arms in silence, and sighed convulsively when released from the embrace of his friend.
"Did I hurt you? Have you any of your pain to-day[to-day]?"
"No; not yet. I think it is coming; but never mind that now. Kaatje will stay with me till you come back. You will come back, M. Aymond."
When the pastor consented, and the widow approached to bid farewell to her child for an hour, Christian threw his arms once more round Aymond's neck. His brother Luc, a rough strong boy of ten, pulled them down, and rebuked him for being so free with the pastor; and little Roselyn, the spoiled child of the family, was ready with her lecture too, and told how she had been instructed to cross her hands and wait till M. Aymond spoke to her, instead of jumping upon him as she did upon her brother Heins. Christian made no other reply to these rebukes than looking with a smile in the face of the pastor, with whom he had established too good an understanding to suppose that he could offend him by the warmth of an embrace.
"I am sorry you cannot go with us, my poor little Christian," said Heins, who had a curious method of making his condolences irksome and painful to the object of them. "I am sorry you cannot pay this last duty to our honoured parent. You will not have our satisfaction in looking back upon the discharge of it."
"Christian is singled out by God for a different duty," observed the pastor. "He must show cheerful submission to his heavenly parent while you do honour to the remains of an earthly one."
Christian tried to keep this thought before him while he saw them leaving the room, and heard the coffin carried out, and the long train of mourners, consisting of all the acquaintance of the deceased, filing away from the door.--When the last step had passed the threshold, and it appeared from the unusual quiet that the crowd had followed the mourners, Christian turned from the light, and buried his face in one of the pillows of his couch, so that Katrina, the young woman who, among other offices, attended upon him and his little sister, entered unperceived by him. She attracted his attention by the question which he heard oftener than any other,--'the pain?'