"A good many years, my dear. She must have been an elderly woman when she died; not old, as I count age, but perhaps seventy-five, or thereabouts. I lived far away at that time, but John Montfort has often told me of the time of her death. He was a little lad, and he regarded the Black Rooms and their tenant with the utmost terror. He used to run past the door, he says, for fear the Black Aunt should come out and seize him, and take him into her dreary dwelling. Poor Aunt Phoebe was the mildest creature in the world, and would not have hurt a fly, but to him she was something awful,—out of nature. He was taken in to see her once or twice a year, and he always had nightmare after it, being a nervous child. Well, one day he was running through the Green Parlour here, and looking back at the windows of the Black Rooms, as he never could help doing; and he saw Rosalie, the coloured woman, come to the window and throw it wide open, letting in the full light of day. Then she went to the next, and so on; and the child knew what had happened before she spoke. I remember her words:
"'She's gone, honey! Her sperit's gone. It went out'n dis window, straight by whar you's standin', and into the cedar bush. De Lord hab mercy!'
"And poor little John took to his heels, and ran, and never stopped running till he was in his own bed upstairs.
"That is the story, Margaret; but I ought to add that the belt of hair was laid in the grave with her, at her special request."
"What a sad, sad story! Poor soul! Poor, forlorn, tortured soul! How glad she must have been to go! Aunt Faith—"
"Yes, dear Margaret!"
"Oh, nothing,—only—it seems dreadful sometimes, to feel that terrible things may be coming, coming toward one, and that one never can look forward, never know when they may come! I sometimes think, if I could see a year ahead, or even a week,—but one never knows. I suppose it is best, or it would not be!"
"Assuredly, dear child! When you think a little more, you will see the wisdom and the mercy of it. How could we go steadfastly along our path of every day, if some day we saw a pit at the farther end? Life would be impossible, Margaret."
"Yes, I—I suppose so!" said Margaret thoughtfully.
"And all the time," Mrs. Cheriton went on, "all the time, during the clear, calm days and years, my child, we are, or we ought to be, laying by, as it were; storing up light and strength and happiness for the dark days when we may so deeply need them. Think a moment! Think of all the happy days and years with your father! They are blessed memories, are they not, Margaret? every day is like a jewel that you take out and look at, and then put back in its case; you never lose these precious things that are all your own!"