In the midst of these meditations the door opened, and Mrs. Robson appeared, drowned in tears.
"My dear, dear sir!" cried she, "my William is going. I have just taken a last look of his sweet face. Will you go down and say farewell to the poor child you loved so dearly?"
"No, my good madam," returned Thaddeus, his straying thoughts at once gathering round this mournful centre; "I will rather retain you here until the melancholy task be entirely accomplished."
With gentle violence he forced her upon a seat, and in silence supported her head on his breast, against which she unconsciously leaned and wept. He listened with a depressed heart to the removal of the coffin; and at the closing of the street door, which forever shut the little William from that house in which he had been the source of its greatest pleasure, a tear trickled down the cheek of Thaddeus; and the sobbings of the poor grandmother were audible.
The count, incapable of speaking, pressed her hand in his.
"Oh, Mr. Constantine!" cried she, "see how my supports, one after the other, are taken from me! first my son, and now his infant! To what shall I be reduced?"
"You have still, my good Mrs. Robson, a friend in Heaven, who will supply the place of all you have lost on earth."
"True, dear sir! I am a wicked creature to speak as I have done; but it is hard to suffer: it is hard to lose all we loved in the world!"
"It is," returned the count, greatly affected by her grief. "But God, who is perfect wisdom as well as perfect love, chooseth rather to profit us than to please us in his dispensations. Our sweet William has gained by our loss: he is blessed in heaven, while we weakly lament him on earth. Besides, you are not yet deprived of all; you have a grand-daughter."
"Ah, poor little thing! what will become of her when I die? I used to think what a precious brother my darling boy would prove to his sister when I should be no more!"