“Did I not tell you so?” said this good son. “Every body in this house declares, and she does herself, that she is dying—but nothing comes of it. For God’s sake choose a day—as I have often told you—and see that you keep to it! I am going to return whence I came, and I recommend you not to call me again. If she does die she must die alone, for I will not keep her company.”
Now I must tell you the end of this history. The lady, ill as she was, recovered from this extreme sickness, and lived and languished as before for the space of three years, during which time her good son visited her once, and that was just as she was about to give up the ghost. But when they came to seek him to come to her deathbed, he was trying on a new habit and would not come. Message after message was sent to him, for his good mother, who was nearing her end, wished to recommend her soul to her son’s care,—but to all the messages he replied;
“I am sure there is no hurry: she will wait till my habit is finished.”
At last so many remonstrances were made to him that he went to his mother, wearing a doublet with no sleeves to it, which, when she saw, she asked him where were the sleeves.
“They are within there,—waiting to be finished as soon as you clear out of the place.”
“Then they will be soon finished,” she replied; “for I go to God, to whom I humbly recommend my soul; and to you also, my son.”
Without another word she rendered her soul to God, with the Cross between her arms; on seeing which her good son began to weep so loudly that no one had ever heard the like; he could not be comforted, and at the end of a fortnight he died of grief.
