But Vesty's dear face turned to me with the sorrow of dying.
I was not used to lose my rest. I dozed faintly, with faithfully sleepless lids. In that east of heavy blackness the candle made a strange sun. The world, elsewhere so far from heaven, here at the Basin ascended to it by a common stairway, and little children and the pure of heart climbed upward without dread.
"May I go?" I said, watching them.
"If a child leads thee," said a voice.
So I looked to a little child, to take my hand, and I saw my mother's face waiting from above, and the beams of glory narrowed; it was the candle burning dimly on the table.
"Notely!" I heard a voice calling.
I started up.
"Notely!" called Uncle Benny, very sweetly and tremulously from the bed. "Where is he? I led him to school."
Vesty had gone to the door, and leaned her head there, as if to press back the unbearable anguish and pathos sweeping over her like a flood.
"Notely! Little Note! He was the handsomest of them all, but sometimes he ran away. Notely! Little Note! come home with Uncle Benny now; come home!"