Dear little ones, they did not know their mother was dying; but Beatrice did, and her tears fell like rain upon the pinched, white face pillowed on her arm, as she kissed the quivering lips, which whispered softly:
“Darling Trix and Bunchie,—God bless them!—and tell Theo Mollie will be at the beautiful gate, waiting and watching for him, and for you all,—waiting and watching as they now wait and watch for me over there, the shining ones, crowding on the shore, and some are there to whom I first told the story of Jesus in the far-off heathen land. Tell Theo they are there, and many whom he led to the Saviour. It is no delusion, as some have thought. I see them, I see into Heaven, and it is so near; it lies right side by side with this world, only a step between.”
Her mind was wandering a little, for her words became indistinct, until her voice ceased altogether, and Beatrice watched her as the last great struggle went on and the soul parted from the body, which was occasionally convulsed with pain, as if it were hard to sever the tie which bound together the mortal and immortal.
At last, just as the beautiful southern sunset flooded the river and the fields beyond with golden and rosy hues, and the fresh evening breeze came stealing into the room, laden with the perfume of the orange and lemon blossoms it had kissed on its way, Mollie Morton passed from the world where she had known so much care to the life immortal, where the shining ones were waiting and watching for her.
And far down the coast, threading in and out among the little islands and streams, came the boat which bore the Rev. Theodore Morton to the wife he hoped to find alive. Bee’s summons had found him busy with his people, with whom he was deservedly popular, and who bade him God-speed, and followed him with prayers for his own safety, and, if possible, the recovery of his wife, whom they had never seen. But this last was not to be, and when about noon the boat came up to its accustomed landing-place, and Bee stood on the wharf to meet him, he knew by one glance at her face that he had come too late. Everything which love could devise was done for the dead, on whose white face the husband’s tears fell fast when he first looked upon it, feeling, it may be, an inner consciousness of remorse as he remembered that all his heart had not been given to her. But he had been kind, and tender, and considerate, and he folded her children in his arms, and felt that in all the world there was nothing so dear to him as his motherless little ones.
The next day they left Florida for the bleak hills of Vermont, where the wintry winds and drifting snow seemed to howl a wild requiem for the dead woman, whose body rested one night in the old home where the white-haired father and mother wept so piteously over it, and even Aunt Nancy forgot to care for the tracks upon her clean kitchen floor, as the villagers came in with words of condolence and sympathy. Beatrice was with the mourners who stood by the grave that wild January day when Mollie Morton was buried, and she gave the message from the dead to the husband, who wept like a child when he saw his wife laid away under the blinding snow, which, ere the close of the day, covered the grave in one great mountain drift.
Both Everard and Rossie had written to Beatrice telling her of Josephine’s arrival at the Forrest House, and, with a feeling that she was needed in Rothsay, she started for home the day after Mollie’s funeral.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
HOW THE TIDE EBBED AND FLOWED IN ROTHSAY.
Josephine had resolved to be popular at any cost, and make for herself a party, and so good use had she made of her time and opportunities that when Beatrice arrived the weaker ones, who, with Mrs. Rider at their head, had from the first espoused her cause, were gradually gaining in numbers; while the better class of people, Everard’s friends, were beginning to think more kindly of the lady of the Forrest House, where an entire new state of things and code of laws had been inaugurated. Axie had, of course, vacated immediately after Rossie’s departure, and Josephine had been wise enough not to ask her to remain. She knew the old negress was strongly prejudiced against her, and was glad when she departed, bag and bundle, for the little house she had purchased in town, where she could be near “her boy,” and wash and mend his clothes, and fight for him when necessary, as it sometimes was, for people could not easily understand his indifference to the beautiful creature who was conducting herself so sweetly and modestly, and whom women ran to the windows to see when she drove by in the pretty phaeton which, through Rossie’s influence, she had managed to get from Everard, or rather, from the Forrest estate. It is true the horse did not suit her. It was too old and slow, and not at all like the spirited animal she used to drive with Captain Sparks at her side in Holburton, but it was an heir-loom, as she called it, laughingly, raised from a stock of horses which had been in the family for years, and was so steady that Mr. Forrest was perfectly willing to trust her with it; and each day she drove around the town, showing herself everywhere, bowing to everybody high and low, and because she had heard that Miss Belknap used to do so, taking to drive the sick and infirm among the poor and needy, to whom she was all kindness and sympathy. With this class, however, she did not stand as well as with the grade above them. It would almost seem as if they were gifted with a special insight, and read her character aright; and though they accepted what she offered them, they did not believe in her, and privately among themselves declared she was not a lady born,—or a fitting wife for Everard.