“Yes, I will come; and thank you, thank you a thousand times for bringing her,” he said.
They all talked of Dora as if she were a thing, as if she had nothing to do with herself. Her mind was roused by the motion, by the air blowing in her face. “What has happened? What has happened?” she asked as they drove away.
“Will she be up yonder already, beyond that shining sky? Will she know as she is known? Will she be satisfied with His likeness, and be like Him, seeing Him as He is?” said Miss Bethune, looking up at the stars, with her eyes full of big tears.
“Oh, tell me,” cried Dora, “what has happened?” with a sob of excitement; for whether she was sorry, or only awe-stricken, she did not know.
“Just everything has happened that can happen to a woman here. She has got safe away out of it all; and there are few, few at my time of life, that would not be thankful to be like her—out of it all: though it may be a great thought to go.”
“Do you mean that the lady is dead?” Dora asked in a voice of awe.
“She is dead, as we say; and content, having had her heart’s desire.”
“Was that me?” cried Dora, humbled by a great wonder. “Me? Why should she have wanted me so much as that, and not to let me go?”
“Oh, child, I know no more than you, and yet I know well, well! Because she was your mother, and you were all she had in the world.”
“My mother’s sister,” said Dora, with childish sternness; “and,” she added after a moment, “not my father’s friend.”