So he let her have her will; and for a moment she nestled close to the still dead heart, which had always beaten for her so warmly. Then she lifted up her head.
“Mamma is very cold,” she said, “and she does not stir. Can she hear what I say?”
Again something invisible seemed to warn him against taking away from the child her mother. He answered very gently and slowly,—
“She’s dead, my darling,—what we call dead. I do not understand it—no one understands it; but it comes, one day, to everybody, and it is God’s will. Your mamma cannot speak to us any more, and soon she will be gone out of our sight; but she truly believed that she would always be able to see your face and hear your voice, as when she was here.”
“She is here. Won’t she be here always?” the little girl asked, growing cold with the shadow of an awful fear.
“No, dear, she will not be here long. In a few days this dear white face will be put away, underneath the grass and the flowers; but the real mamma, who loves little Maudie, will not be buried up. She will be somewhere, I truly believe, where she can see and hear her little girl.”
For a moment the child slid again from his arms, and nestled close against the cold breast, kissed the unmoving lips. Then she said,—
“Good-by, this mamma, who can’t see; and good-night, other mamma, that hears Maudie.”
Colonel Trevethick marvelled. Had he, indeed, succeeded in making this little creature understand; or had some one whom he could not see spoken to her words of sweet mother-wisdom?
He carried her then, and laid her in her little bed, and went back to his own loneliness; but half an hour afterward he heard the small voice calling. “Papa, papa!” and again he went to her, and the little arms came up around his neck, and held him fast.