Her fairy foot-steps were never heard tripping, nor her voice vibrating through the entry in some sweet song. She scarcely ever looked out at the window—all was dreary there; besides, she fancied that the wind "looked at her." It was in her armchair by the antique fire-place that she was most comfortable. She never wearied of watching the pictured tiles; and one, representing the infant Christ in the manger, was her favorite. There she sat from sunny morn until shadowy twilight, with her delicate hands crossed on her lap, while Mortimer read to her. Sometimes she would fix her large, thoughtful eyes on the fantastic grouping of the embers at her feet, and then she did not hear him reading.
She was wandering in Soul-land.
Heaven's gates are open when the world's are shut. The gates of this world were closing on Bell, and her feet were hesitating at the threshold of Heaven, waiting only for the mystic word to enter!
Very beautiful Bell was. Her perfect soul could not hide itself in the pale, spiritual face. It was visible in her thought and in her eyes. There was a world of tender meaning in her smile. The Angel of Patience had folded her in its wings, and she was meek, holy. As Mortimer sat by her before the evening lamps were lighted, and watched the curious pictures which the flickering drift-wood painted on the walls, he knew that she could not last till the violets came again. She spoke so gently of death, the bridge which spans the darkness between us and Heaven—so softened its dark, dreadful outlines, that it seemed as beautiful as a path of flowers to the boy and Nanny.
"Death," said Bell one day, "is a folding of the hands to sleep. How quiet is death! There is no more yearning, no more waiting in the grave. It comes to me pleasantly, the thought that I shall lie under the daisies, God's daisies! and the robins will sing over me in the trees. Everything is so holy in the church-yard—the moss on the walls, the willows, and the long grass that moves in the wind!"
Poor Nanny tried to hum one of her old ditties about Cloe and her lover; then suddenly she found something interesting at the window. But it would not do. The tears would come, and she knelt down by Bell's side, and Bell's little hand fell like a strip of white moonlight on Nanny's hair.
"We shall miss you, darling!" sobbed Mortimer.
"At first, won't you?" and Bell smiled, and who knows what sights she saw in the illumined fire-place? Were they pictures of Heaven, little Bell?
"What shall I read to you, pet?" asked Mortimer one morning. She had been prattling for an hour in her wise, child-like way, and was more than usually bright.
"You shall not read to me at all," replied Bell, chirpingly, "but sit at my feet, and I will read to you."