Taking one hand from my hair, while the fingers of the other still lingered among my curls, she pointed to the plant, and looked wistfully at Johnny. The good German was not usually quick of comprehension; but he understood the mute appeal now, and he asked in a voice even more husky than his usual guttural tones,—
"Vat you vants, Maddy? Some dem vlowers?"
She nodded assent, and the florist hastily cut a cluster, and put it in her hand. With fast-failing strength she tried to place it in my hair; but the effort was too much; and Milly, who stood behind me, assisted her to arrange the blossoms as she would have them. A look of intense satisfaction passed over the pallid face, as though to her untutored taste this glaring adornment was all that could be desired; then the hands fell, and the lips moved.
Both Tony and I tried to hear; but the only word I could hear was, "suffer."
"Do you suffer so, poor little Matty?" I asked, for the doctor had assured us that she did not.
She shook her head feebly, and I heard the word "children."
"What children? Do you mean you want to see my little sisters, Matty?" I asked.
"No, miss," interposed Tony. "I knows what she means. It is a teks was hung up in the Sunday-school room right forninst where she sat, an' she used to sit starin' at it like she hadn't nothin' else to think on; an' the lady what run the class teached it to her one day, 'cause it was the Golden Teks for that day, an' she's made me be a-hearin' ov it a many times since. She did set sich a heap by that teks as I niver saw, an' I'm thinkin' she wants yer to be a-repeatin' of it to her, miss.—Does yer, Matty?"
Again she nodded; and I said as well as my sobs would let me, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
"More, more," she whispered faintly; and I repeated over and over again the sweet, gracious invitation which has lasted and shall last through all time, gathering into those loving arms the little ones of every degree, the beautiful and the uncouth, the happy and the oppressed; until to the echo of that golden text poor Matty's soul floated away peacefully and quietly.