“Well, I saw no reason to make it,” said Miss Gay, mildly. “If I were to give in to your fancies, Susannah, I might as well shut up the room. Visitors must get used to it.”
The watch had been partly hidden under one of John’s neckties. I caught it up and decamped.
We went to church after breakfast. The first hymn sung was that one beginning, “Brief life.”
“Brief life is here our portion;
Brief sorrow, short-lived care.
The life that knows no ending,
The tearless life, is there.”
As the verses went on, John touched my elbow: “Miss Gay,” he whispered; his eyelashes moist with the melody of the music. I have often thought since that we might have seen by these very moods of John—his thoughts bent upon heaven more than upon earth—that his life was swiftly passing.
There’s not much to tell of that Sunday. We dined in the middle of the day; John fell asleep after dinner; and in the evening we attended church again. And I think every one was ready for bed when bedtime came. I know I was.
Therefore it was all the more surprising when, the next morning, John said he had again not slept.
“What, not at all!” exclaimed his mother.
“No, not at all. As I went to bed, so I got up—sleepless.”