As gently as he could, he broke to her the wonderful news. The girl was trembling from head to foot.
But her first thought seemed to be of her mother. "And that was it," she cried amid her sobs; "that was the sorrow mother carried about with her all the time. Oh, Harvey, I always knew there was something—I always felt mother had some burden she wouldn't let us share with her—I always felt her heart was hungry for something she hoped she'd get before she died. Poor, poor mother—our dear, brave mother!"
Harvey staunched the tide of grief as best he could. Their talk turned, and naturally enough, to the hope of their father's return some day, both promising the fulfillment of their mother's dying wish.
"We'll do just as mother would have done," the girl said in sweet simplicity; "and we'll wait together, Harvey—we'll watch and wait together."
"And you'll help me, won't you, sister?" Harvey asked suddenly.
"What to do?" Jessie said wonderingly.
"Just help me," he answered, his voice faltering. "Will you promise me that, Jessie; you don't know yet all it means—just always to stick to me, and help me, and believe in me—till—till father comes?" he concluded, looking steadfastly into her wondering eyes. "Come with me, sister—come."
The darkness was at its deepest, the lamp-light now flickered into gloom, as he rose and led her gently from the room. Groping noiselessly, they two, the only living things about the house, crept downward to the chamber of the dead. The door creaked with a strange unearthly sound as Harvey pushed it open and drew his sister in beside him. Onward he pressed, his arm still supporting her, till they stood above the silent face. It lay in the pomp of the majestic silence, calmly awaiting the last earthly dawn that should ever break upon it, awaiting that slow-approaching hour when the last movement should be made, the last tender rudeness which would lay it, swaying slightly, upon the waiting bosom of the earth—and then the eternal stillness and the dark.
They stood long, no sound escaping them, above the noble face. Its dim outlines could be just discerned, calm and stately in the royal mien of death. They gazed long together. "I believe she's near us," Harvey whispered. Then he drew her gently down till their faces met upon the unresponsive face of their precious dead.
A moment later he led her tenderly away. She passed first through the door; but he turned and looked back. The first gray streak of dawn was stealing towards his mother's face; and he saw, or thought he saw, a look of deeper peace upon it than had ever been there before. And the still lips spoke their benediction and breathed their love upon her children—all the more her own because she dwelt with God.