JACK + MURFY comity.
The widow laid aside the paper, put her face in her hands, and began to weep. There was something in the honest, unskilled way in which these boys had laid their hearts open before her in this time of general sorrow, that brought the tears into her eyes at last, and for many minutes they flowed without restraint. Those who were with her knew that the danger that had menaced her was passed.
After a little she lifted her head.
"I will see the boys," she said. "I will thank them in person. Tell them to assemble in the hall."
The message was given, and the boys filed into the broad hall, and stood waiting, hats in hand, in silence and in awe.
Down the wide staircase the lady came, holding her little girl by the hand, and at the last step they halted. As Ralph looked up and saw her face, pallid but beautiful, and felt the influence of her gracious yet commanding presence, there came over him again that strange sensation as of beholding some familiar sight. It seemed to him that sometime, somewhere, he had not only seen her and known her, but that she had been very close to him. He felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to cry out to her for some word, some look of recognition. Then she began to speak. He held himself firmly by the back of a chair, and listened as to a voice that had been familiar to him in some state of being prior to his life on earth.
"Boys," said the lady, "I come to thank you in person for your assurances of sympathy for me and for my little daughter, and for your veneration for the dead. I know that his feeling toward you was very kind, that he tried to lighten your labors as he could, that he hoped for you that you would all grow into strong, good men. I do not wonder that you sorrow at his loss. This honest, simple tribute to his memory that you have given to me has touched me deeply.
"I cannot hope to be as close to you as he was, but from this time forth I shall be twice your friend. I want to take each one of you by the hand as you pass by, in token of our friendship, and of my faith in you, and my gratitude toward you."
So, one by one, as they passed into the room beyond, she held each boy's hand for a moment and spoke to him some kind word, and every heart in her presence went out to her in sympathy and love.
Last of all came Ralph. As leader of the party he had thought it proper to give precedence to the rest. The lady took his hand as he came by, the same hand that had received her husband's tender care; but there was something in his pallid, grief-marked face, in the brown eyes filled with tears, in the sensitive trembling of the delicate lips, as she looked down on him, that brought swift tenderness for him to her heart. She bent over and lifted up his face to hers, and kissed his lips, and then, unable longer to restrain her emotion, she turned and hastened up the stairway, and was lost to sight.