Hold me with Thy powerful hand.”
Standing about her bed they sang that, and each separate heart was welling a song of joy, because they thought she had come back to them!
Like those great ladies at Versailles, in the reign of the Grand Monarch, who received in bed, she laughed, happy as the happiest of them.
Then came another procession, down to the last servant in the house, bearing gifts. Then flowers and green things—until the beautiful rose-embroidered covering of her bed was lost to sight under the load of flowers, and these in turn were blotted out with the gifts. Wonderful gifts they were! How could they not be? They were welcoming with them their best beloved back to life! On her neck was girded a chain, on her fingers were put rings, and in her ears were hung gems, so that she blazed with jewels. Before her lay a splendid, filmy dress, and with it were hat and gloves and a gay parasol.
All—all, gifts of life!
And yet another procession came, bearing holly and mistletoe and garlands and crimson berries, and last of all, a Christmas tree, all lighted and glowing with a hundred pretty things. And almost in a moment they transformed the room into a Christmas bower. The bed, the walls, the floor, bloomed in the red and white and green of Christmas.
So Christmas came—the gayest, the maddest, the saddest that house had ever known.
But she had barely carried it through, and when the excitement would pass the doctor knew that no stimulant devised by man could keep her on the earth she had blessed an hour longer. Before the collapse quite came, the doctor said:
“My patient is tired—”
“A little tired, yes,” she smiled at them. “To-morrow.”