And Mrs. Barrett caught the “chief of sinners” as if she had never heard it before, and held to it, and kept repeating to herself, “The chief of sinners; that’s I; He must have meant me, the very chiefest.”
Then she would ask Gertie to pray,—that the sin might be forgiven, and the girl kept from harm, and without knowing at all for whom she prayed or what particular sin, Gertie did pray many times, and did her best to soothe and comfort the remorseful woman, who grew more quiet at last, and exhibited less terror of death and the world beyond.
“I may yet be saved, but it will be as by fire,” she said to Gertie one day,—the seventh since the morning when Edith had been borne insensible from her room.
In her own agony of mind Mrs. Barrett had not evinced much interest in Edith’s illness, nor did she know how sick she was until, when more quiet herself, she asked for her daughter, and why she did not come to see her. Then Gertie told her of the fever which was raging so high, and with the tears pouring over her withered face, Mrs. Barrett said:
“I shall never see her again; but tell her, Gertie, how bitterly I repented, and how at the last peace came, even to me. Tell her, too,—and don’t forget this message, which will comfort her, perhaps,—tell her the last words she ever said to me must not make her unhappy. I deserved them. I do not blame her, and she need not remember them with regret, though she will forgive me some time. Heaven has, I hope.”
She was very quiet after that for the remainder of the day, and lay with her eyes shut; but several times, when Gertie looked at her to see if she was asleep, she saw her lips move, and knew that she was praying. That night was her last, for she died toward morning,—alone with Gertie, as she wished to be.
“Don’t call any one, please,” she said, when Gertie proposed going for Mrs. Tiffe. “I’d rather be alone with you, who have been so kind to me, and who, I am sure, like me a little.”
“Yes,—I do, I do!” Gertie said, kissing the white face, on which the death-dew was standing.
And Mrs. Barrett continued:
“It is strange that you should be the one to care for me at the last, as tenderly as if you were my own grandchild. Have you a grandmother, Gertie?”