On the path I met my mother, with baby, toddling and tumbling by her side.
"How is she now?" I asked.
She was awake—had been awake these two hours, but in a strange kind of wakefulness, her big angel eyes open and shining like stars as if smiling at someone whom nobody else could see, and her lips moving as if speaking some words which nobody else could hear.
"What art thou saying, boght millish?" my mother had asked, and after a moment in which she seemed to listen in rapture, my darling had answered:
"Hush! I am speaking to mamma—telling her I am leaving Isabel with Christian Ann. And she is saying she is very glad."
We walked round to the front of the house until we came close under the window of "Mary O'Neill's little room," which was wide open.
The evening was so still that we could hear the congregation singing in the church and on the path in front of it.
Presently somebody began to sing in the room above. It was my darling—in her clear sweet silvery voice which I have never heard the like of in this world and never shall again.
After a moment another voice joined hers—a deep voice, the Reverend Mother's.
All else was quiet. Not a sound on earth or in the air. A hush had fallen on the sea itself, which seemed to be listening for my precious darling's last breath. The sun was going down, very red in its setting, and the sky was full of glory.