I think the children loved Grandmother better even than in her girl-days.
The Saturday feasts were quieter, but still full of light and joy, and the stories—well, they were like no other stories that ever were told.
“And oh! the words that fell from her mouth,
Were words of wisdom and of truth.”
So she lived, blessing and blessed, twenty more heavenly years; and so, when God called her, she died. We found her one morning sitting by the little cradle, her head resting on it, and a white rose in her quiet hand. When we raised her face and looked at it, there was no need to ask whither the spirit had gone.
And Rachel? A year after Manuel died, she married a man from a neighboring village, a masterful man who broke her over his knee like a willow switch, and whom she adored for the rest of her life. She bore him sons and daughters, and grew—comparatively—cheerful and placid.
She came to see Grandmother now and then, and marvelled at her.
“How you do age, Grandmother!” she would say. “And you without a care in the world. I wonder what would have happened if you had really lived, as I have!”
THE END.