"Oh, I am not so bad that I do not want His Spirit. I do believe; I do try to follow the dear Lord; but I want a human comforter,—something to see and feel,—tender lips, gentle fingers. The flesh is so weak."
"And I meant a human comforter. I believe He will send you one in His own time and way,—when you learn, perhaps, to forget yourself in helping some one still more desolate."
"As if that could be. O, mother, when you are gone there won't be in the whole wide world such a lonesome, aching heart as mine."
"People always say that, dear; always think there is no sorrow like their sorrow, until God teaches them better, either by making their own burden heavier, or by showing them how to help some one else. God grant it may be this last with you, Bessie."
"But is there no hope, mother?" I said, with a wild longing for a little of the comfort a doubt would give.
"I think none. Dr. West told you so Wednesday, did he not? and you have been trying to keep it from me,—as if I could not read it in your face, every time you looked at me."
All reserve broke down then. I was in her arms, sobbing and crying on her bosom; I that so soon would have no mother's bosom for my refuge any more for ever.
The doctor had said her life was a question of days or weeks. She lived four weeks after he told me that, and then one night she talked with me a long, long time. At last she said she was tired, and would go to sleep. Then she kissed me, as she always did, and turned her gentle face toward the wall. She awoke again in another world than ours. But by the calm blessedness of the smile on the dead face I knew that her soul had departed in peace. It was a smile that made her young and fair again, as the mother I remembered away back in my childhood.
Oh, what a desolate funeral that was! I had no friends near enough to give them any claim to be sent for, and I wanted no one. I made all the arrangements myself, and the third day I buried my dead. I remember the minister, after the funeral rites were over, stopped a moment beside the grave to speak a few words of sympathy to me, sole mourner. But I was deaf with sorrow. I made no answer, and presently he turned away. I don't know how long I stood there. After a while my driver came up, touching his hat, respectfully, and asked,—
"Would ye plaise to start soon, miss?" and mechanically I went toward the carriage, and he put me in and shut the door. So I went back to the desolate room where she had died.