“And then the next thing I remember was a dull, sluggish feeling, of almost pain, and a choking sensation; and then, your face, full of compassion, my kind Sister, beamed on me and consoled me. It had been a grievous change from heaven’s angels, but that I found one of mercy on earth.”
“Very little like an angel,” said Sister Martha, with a smile; “but tell me now, how the angels look.”
“That is just what I cannot do,” said Clara, “no more than I can tell how the soul looks that beams in your eye, but is not your eye,—how the tears well up from your tender heart, and soften but do not suffuse. Ah! with what body do they come? Something that without seeing, we love, and before which, body, and feature, and form, even in this life melt away. Even here we love what we never saw or can see, how much more in a world, where thought meets thought with purest eloquence, unimpeded by words or tones, where the glance of an eye speaks a clear reply to every question you ask, and gentle affections lapse your soul in perpetual joy. You love them, these angels, without knowing why, and without the need of sight to feed the feeling.”
“You have seen very much, Clara,” said the pious sister, “I would I might die, to learn thus, how to live.”
“Yes, life can never seem to me as it has done. I would that so it might have looked to my darling child. I would that she might have the memory of that fond embrace, and those touching words of the Divine Saviour.”
Sister Martha never forgot this incident in her monotonous and yet ever varied existence. In the varieties of pain and suffering which she witnessed and relieved, she constantly remembered the young Clara and her eventful entrance into a life which promised so little to innocence and poverty. From time to time she traced her path, and administered such consolations and assistance as were consistent with her own duties, and when ten years after, Mrs. Neville sunk into a sleep of death, Sister Martha closed the eyes of the parent, and bore the weeping child to the convent of Chaillot, where she would have at least a shelter, and the kind care she needed.
Since her birth, Clara, or as the Sisters of the French Convent called her, Claire Neville, had neither seen nor heard from her father, but her mother, who had received no intelligence of his death, had constantly looked forward, even to the day of her death, to a re-union with him upon earth, and not an hour before she died, she had told the beloved being, for whom alone she wished to live, that she was convinced that she should not depart, without once more being consoled by his presence.
A few moments before her final departure, her vivid fancy, acting on the hope that had so long filled her whole being, produced the resemblance for which she sighed. She raised her eyes to the door, and a glad expression of recognition, illumined them with more than mortal light; and while those about her in vain sought for the object of her mental sight, she was evidently in a state of happy conviction that the so long-lost was found, and that her child had, when most she needed it, found a friend and a father. Her lips moved, but uttered no sound—she gazed at her child, and smiled,—and, in that smile, passed into a world, where is no more death.
Claire remained at the convent, which was within a mile of the small town of Chaillot, on the French coast; and, by rendering such services as her tender age would permit—and by her unvarying sweetness and gentleness, endeared herself to the sisters, and as they said, amply repaid them for the slight expenses she incurred.
But, deprived of the society of children, and having no person about her, with whom she could precisely sympathize, the young girl grew up with an isolation of spirit, easy to foresee, and a prematurity of character, consequent on her position, which strangely contrasted with her childish face. Her eyes, which were of a clear blue, had a sweet seriousness in their depths, so far removed from the glad insouciance of childhood, as to startle you as you gazed, and for the moment to fill you with awe, as if in the presence of a spirit—at least such was my own feeling the first time I saw her.