Albert was deeply affected by these words, and in vain he endeavoured to stifle his sobs.
“Albert!” said his father, suddenly.
“Yes, father, I am here,” he replied.
“Do you recollect your mother, my dear boy?”
“But dimly, father.”
“She—she is beckoning me now. Farewell! Bless you, Albert—Ada!”
There was one long-drawn sigh, and the kind-hearted, noble Mr. Seyton was with his God.
It was some moments before Albert could bring himself to believe that his father was no more; and then, with a frantic burst of grief, he called around him the persons of the house, who with gentle violence took him from the chamber of death, and strove to soothe his deep grief with such topics of consolation as suggested themselves to them. But poor Albert heard nothing of their sympathy. His grief was overwhelming; and it was many hours before his deep agony subsided into tears, and the last words of his father came like balm to his wounded spirit.
Then his grief assumed a more calm and melancholy aspect. He shed no more tears; but there was a weight at his heart which even the bright and strangely earnest prophecies of his father, concerning his happiness with Ada, could not remove. Time alone, in such cases, heals the deep and agonising grief which ensues in a fond and truthful heart, after such a disseverment of a tie which, while it exists, we cannot imagine can ever be broken.