Then Pamela gave a low cry. Her mother, who had been motionless for hours, after a wild struggle turned her head round upon the pillow. Her palsied fingers fluttered on the coverlid as if with an attempt to stretch themselves out toward Sara. Her eyes were ready to start from their sockets. “She will not speak to me!” she cried—“although she saved me. I make her guardian of my child. Do you hear?—is there any one to hear me? She is to take care of my Pamela. She is killing me. Sara, Sara! do you hear? I am speaking to you. You are to take care of my Pamela. I leave her to you—”
“Do what she says,” said a low voice at Sara’s shoulder. “Promise any thing—every thing. She must not be thwarted now.”
Sara did not know who it was that spoke. She made a step forward, recovering her native impetuosity. She laid her warm living hand upon the cold half-dead one of the dying woman and left it there, though the touch thrilled to her heart. “I will take care of her,” she said, “I promise, as if she was my sister. Do you hear me now, Mrs. Preston? I promise with all my heart. Oh, Pamela, I don’t think she hears me! I have said it too late—she is going to die.”
The doctor, who had spoken to Sara, came forward and drew her softly from the bedside. “Take her away,” he said to Jack, who all this while had been looking on. “Take them both away—they can do no good here—”
Sara, who was trembling in every limb, fell back upon her brother’s supporting arm; but when Jack held out his other hand to Pamela she made him no reply. She was weaker than Sara, but she was a hundred times stronger. She gave him one pitiful look and returned to her mother. That was her place, come what might; and she was so young, that even now she could not recognize that there was no hope.
Then Jack took his sister down stairs. They went into the little parlor, which was full to his mind of so many associations. Sara had not, like Pamela, the support of intense and overwhelming emotion. She was shaken to the very depths by this extraordinary trial. As soon as it was over she fell into hysterical sobbing like a child. She could not restrain herself. She sunk upon the little black sofa in the parlor, where Mrs. Preston had so often rested, and hid her face in her hands to keep down as far as she could the irrepressible sobs. Jack had begun to walk about the room and seemed to take no notice; but he was thinking in his heart how small a matter it was to her in comparison with what it was to Pamela, though it was she and not Pamela who indulged in this show of sorrow. He was unkind to his sister; he was bitter against her, and against all the world. It was his natural charge that had been transferred to her hands; and who was Sara that she should have such a guardianship given to her? He vowed to himself that it was he and only he who should take care of Pamela. Sara? a girl who knew nothing about it—a child with no power to take care of herself—the woman must be mad. He went to the door with a little excitement as the sound became audible of other people coming down stairs. The spectators who had crowded into Mrs. Preston’s sick room were being sent away, and old Betty, thus deprived of one source of interest, came in courtesying to make herself useful to Sara. “Poor soul, she’s awful bad;” said Betty, “but, Miss Sara, don’t you take on; you’ve been a comfort to her. She’s a deal easier in her mind; she’s found friends for her girl, as was always her great thought. Don’t you take on—”
“Oh, Betty, is she dead?” cried Sara, to whom the sympathy even of this old woman was a consolation, excited as she was.
“No, Miss,” said Betty, shaking her head. “It ain’t so easy getting shut o’ this life. She ain’t dead, nor won’t be not yet awhile—judging by all as I’ve seen in my day.”
“Then she is getting better,” cried Sara, clasping her hands. “Oh, Jack, thank God! she is going to live.”
Old Betty again shook her head. “Miss Sara, you’re young,” she said; “you don’t know no better. She ain’t a-going to live. But them things take more nor a minute. This world had need to be a better place than it is to most on us; for it’s hard work a-getting in and it’s harder work a-getting out. She may lie like that for days and days. Most folks get to be glad at last when it’s over. It’s weary work, both for them as is nursin’ and them as is dyin’; but it’s what we all has to go through,” said Betty, with a conventional sigh.