“Just that, and nothing less or more.”
Dora walked on by Miss Bethune’s side for some time in silence. There was a long, very long walk through the streets before they reached the coolness and freshness of the Park. She said nothing for a long time, until they had arrived at the Serpentine, which—veiled in shadows and mists of night, with the stars reflected in it, and the big buildings in the distance standing up solemnly, half seen, yet with gleams of lamps and light all over them, beyond, and apparently among the trees—has a sort of splendour and reality, like a great natural river flowing between its banks. She paused there for a moment, and asked, with a quick drawing of her breath: “Is it some one—who is dying—that you are taking me to see?”
“Yes, Dora; and next to your father, your nearest relation in the world.”
“I thought at one time that he was going to die, Miss Bethune.”
“So did we all, Dora.”
“And I was very much afraid—oh, not only heartbroken, but afraid. I thought he would suffer so, in himself,” she said very low, “and to leave me.”
“They do not,” said Miss Bethune with great solemnity, as if not of any individual, but of a mysterious class of people. “They are delivered; anxious though they may have been, they are anxious no more; though their hearts would have broken to part with you a little while before, it is no longer so; they are delivered. It’s a very solemn thing,” she went on, with something like a sob in her voice; “but it’s comforting, at least to the like of me. Their spirits are changed, they are separated; there are other things before them greater than what they leave behind.”
“Oh,” cried the girl, “I should not like to think of that: if father had ceased to think of me even before——”
“It is comforting to me,” said Miss Bethune, “because I am of those that are going, and you, Dora, are of those that are staying. I’m glad to think that the silver chain will be loosed and the golden bowl broken—all the links that bind us to the earth, and all the cares about what is to happen after.”
“Have you cares about what is to happen after?” cried Dora, “Father has, for he has me; but you, Miss Bethune?”