Not until Tommy saw the priest visit the house,
and learned that his sister had been anointed did he realize that she was dangerously ill. When the priest left, he rushed to the couch, and kneeling, took Ethel's hand and covered it with tears and kisses, crying passionately with heartrending sobs:
“Ethel, Ethel, Ethel! don't die, don't die yet! Ask God and His Mother to make you well again. You know they will if you ask them.”His cry was an unconscious tribute to his sister's goodness.
Ethel waited with joy and calmness the approach of her Lord. Very soon the priest, bearing the Sacred Host, arrived and the whole household assembled to honor the divine Visitor, and to pray for the departing soul.
Notwithstanding her intense pain, Ethel appeared to be in a transport of joy. Her calm, waxlike face was faintly flushed at the fulfilment of her ardent longings. As she lay making fervent acts of love and thanksgiving, she resembled an angel rather than a child of human clay. So thought her spiritual director as he gave her the last absolution and blessing and began to recite the prayers for the dying.
Tommy's grief became deeper and more demonstrative. His mother gently drew him into the next room, telling him it was for Ethel's good, as he was disturbing her recollection and happiness. With this assurance he became content, although he sobbed as if his heart would break.
Silently, and in helpless, though resigned, anguish the father and mother watched through the long night the flickering spark of life fade and expire. More than once during these long hours they believed the beautiful soul had flown to God, its Maker. Hoping against hope, they earnestly desired that she might last until Roy should reach home at seven, but about three the end came.
“Fetch the boy,” said the father, in a whisper. Mrs. Henning softly left the room. She found Tommy, his face all tear-stained, asleep on the mat just outside the door. Gently waking him, she told him to come to Ethel. The boy, alert in a moment at the sound of her name, came slowly into the room. Neither father nor mother spoke, but the latter led him to the couch where lay the lifeless form of his sister still holding the crucifix in her hand. Her pure soul had flown.
Seeing that she had passed away, the boy bent down and kissed her white forehead and her lips. His mother involuntarily moved a step nearer, intending to catch and console him in his first wild burst of grief. To her surprise the boy neither wept nor spoke. He took one long look at the placid face of his dead sister, and turned away, going out into the open air of the warm night. By the first gray streaks of dawn he wandered through the garden path down to the pond. There lay the boat as he had left it, half drawn up on the shore, and there, withered, lay the lilies she had gathered. The boy remembered how she had used all her little strength to pull up one large bud. She had, at length, laughingly succeeded, dropping it into the boat and letting the long stalk hang in the water.